Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

[Lord Thesaurian]

I can’t tell if I like Mearsheimer because he’s especially insightful, or because he tells me what I already think. Solid analysis in any case, since virtually everything he says has been validated. Likewise I’ve often wondered why NATO hasn’t taken the opposite of its current approach, and tried harder to convince Putin it’s possible for him to try and seize Ukraine by force, effectively taking Russia out of the competition with China and permanently fixating the Kremlin on local issues. In my view, the reason this fairly obvious path wasn’t taken is pure hubris and not strategy.

Time to admit unipolarity and global democratic norms are dying/dead, opportunity that time presented was wasted on the Middle East, pretending otherwise is counterproductive to US interests, and proactive great power rebalancing is the only sustainable path forward. If the US can’t stand the thought of indefinitely putting 5-10k troops at risk in places like Afghanistan or Iraq because of domestic politics, and despite our own material interest in doing so, we can’t expect Russia or China (or, more importantly, our allies in their path) to believe us when we say we’re willing to put 50-100k+ troops and the US mainland at risk to fight a real war with them on their respective doorsteps. We’re led by people who can’t even take responsibility for their own words and actions, let alone the weight of fighting a real war. The better men who called ~30k casualties in one month on Iwo Jima a necessary sacrifice to take a single island in the war isolate and destroy Japan are long dead. And they won’t be back when we stumble into another world war that sees those numbers again.

[Heathen Hammer]

The idea of Russia "disrupting status quo" is laughable, since there is nothing to disrupt. US/NATO got badly humiliated by a ragtag paramilitary less then half a year ago and with ongoing economic calamities caused by neoliberal policies, they are not in position to dictate to Russia or China, let alone both.
Yes, wooing Russia on American side is the only realistic way in which at least some vestiges of Pax Americana can be preserved. Question is, what will it take? US would have to give ground in both Europe and Middle East. Having said that, Russia would at least be less of a liability then America's current "best allies", especially when it comes to fiscal side of things.

[antaeus]

Russia being incomparable to the US in terms of power doesn't mean that Washington doesn't insist on treating Russia as a rival.

Frame it how you like. rivalry suggests some sense of parity. Putin's Russia is more of a stone in one's shoe.

[Vanoi]

Frame it how you like. rivalry suggests some sense of parity. Putin's Russia is more of a stone in one's shoe.

You don't need parity to have a rival. Easy example of that is Iran and Israel.

Underestimating Russia and simply calling them a stone in one's shoe is one of the exact grievances Russia has against the West. Failing to take them seriously is just gonna cause the West more problems.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Russia wouldn’t be fighting the entire US military. In the event of full scale war, it’d be a huge Russian force fighting a likely smaller NATO combined force (if there were even time for something like that to mobilize pre-invasion) in a spat of escalation, while Washington and Moscow scramble to reach a resolution before missiles start flying and the whole planet is put at risk - all over a local, political conflict on the outskirts of the global middle of nowhere. The US has to be on alert all over the world. Russia would be fighting at home. The US doesn’t have local superiority by any stretch.

This unofficial term of “near-peer” is startling because, without qualification, it implies that in any engagement in which America finds itself with either or both powers, its military forces benefit from inherent structural advantages. How these advantages are manifest in any scenario is unclear. While the U.S. military may have the upper hand in certain geographic theaters and contingencies, is America Russia’s peer on the Ukrainian border or near the Baltic states? Is America China’s peer in the South China Sea? The answer is a categorical “no” regarding an ability to influence these regions via military power projection. Of all the potential flashpoints in U.S.-China relations, the starkest power asymmetry lies in the Taiwan Strait. Why then do the DoD and the broader national security community refer to China and Russia as near-peers when in the most likely future conflict, America will be at some form of inherent disadvantage?

https://nationalinterest.org/feature...versary-198333

Speaking for myself, I would consider that disadvantage worth the risk of escalation vs China due to the existential nature of the struggle. The same does not apply to Russia or Iran for that matter.

[antaeus]

You don't need parity to have a rival. Easy example of that is Iran and Israel.

Underestimating Russia and simply calling them a stone in one's shoe is one of the exact grievances Putin's Russia* has against the West. Failing to take them seriously is just gonna cause the West more problems.

Make sure we're using the same language. Nobody takes a nuclear armed sociopath for granted. But giving him equality of voice is just pandering to his tantrums. We can't just supplicate his ego by patting him on the head and saying "yes you're a very important little country" But we also have to be clear that we're talking about Putin here. And making it clear that Putin is the cause of any negative consequences for Russia.

The best thing we can do is strengthen our posture to make certain the consequences of going too far are not worth the effort, and otherwise sidelining and disempowering Putin to the point of irrelevance. All the sociopathic absolutist leader ever wants is centre stage.

[Cope]

Frame it how you like. rivalry suggests some sense of parity. Putin's Russia is more of a stone in one's shoe.

That's the neocon/lib framing, not mine. Exaggerating the Russian threat is par for the course when it comes to Washington's sabre rattling.

[Lord Thesaurian]

The Putin=Hitler argument is a slippery slope assertion. All great powers seek to enforce a sphere of influence, regardless of whether or not Putin is in charge. A reasonable detente with the Kremlin simply acknowledges rather than tries to fight that premise.

Moscow’s meddling in Venezuela likely is at least partially designed to be payback for Washington’s intrusive, provocative policies in Eastern Europe. The ingredients, therefore, exist for a sensible agreement embodying needed restraint on both sides. U.S. leaders should inform the Russian government that they are willing to end their quest to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO and to cease all military connections with Kiev and Tbilisi—including weapons sales and joint exercises. Washington also should offer to end its “rotational” deployment of troops, planes, and warships in Eastern Europe and the Black Sea. In other words, Washington would be willing to respect a Russian sphere of influence in that region.
As a tradeoff, the Trump administration should insist that Moscow greatly dilute its involvement in Venezuela and Cuba; and the administration should suggest that it end a growing flirtation with Nicaragua’s leftist government. That retrenchment especially would require Russia to reverse its growing military presence anywhere in the Western Hemisphere.

https://www.cato.org/commentary/stri...eres-influence

I’d include a cyber truce here as well. It’s already part of the rhetoric anyway.

https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/...df?OpenElement

[Heathen Hammer]

And making it clear that Putin is the cause of any negative consequences for Russia.

Nothing like repeating same style of argument as the one Germans made when they justified mistreatments of Red Army soldiers because Stalin didn't sign Geneva convention.

[Prodromos]

Make sure we're using the same language. Nobody takes a nuclear armed sociopath for granted. But giving him equality of voice is just pandering to his tantrums. We can't just supplicate his ego by patting him on the head and saying "yes you're a very important little country" But we also have to be clear that we're talking about Putin here. And making it clear that Putin is the cause of any negative consequences for Russia.

The best thing we can do is strengthen our posture to make certain the consequences of going too far are not worth the effort, and otherwise sidelining and disempowering Putin to the point of irrelevance. All the sociopathic absolutist leader ever wants is centre stage.

Putin is obviously the victim here, though. I mean, what's the world coming to when a guy can't invade and dismember his neighbors in peace anymore?

[PointOfViewGun]

Frame it how you like. rivalry suggests some sense of parity. Putin's Russia is more of a stone in one's shoe.

Does allowing Russia to annex Ukraine with its 0.6 million km2 lands in milder climate and 40 million extra population into its own territories make that stone larger or smaller?

[antaeus]

Does allowing Russia to annex Ukraine with its 0.6 million km2 lands in milder climate and 40 million extra population into its own territories make that stone larger or smaller?

Who is allowing Putin's Russia to do that? I mean I've literally just suggested that the opposite should occur.

[Cyclops]

I mean there's not much wrong or right in this equation, the US and Russia are going to scrap over them like dogs over a bone and its bloody horrible for the people living there. AFAIK we're trolling Moscow at best because deez nuts and at worse to distract the US voting public from the shambles of Washington, its nothing to do with freedom. It goes without saying Putin isn't offering freedom either.

I hope the Ukrainians and the rest of us get out of the current crisis without being nuked.

[PointOfViewGun]

Who is allowing Putin's Russia to do that? I mean I've literally just suggested that the opposite should occur.

Can't read anywhere where I said you wanted to allow that.

[Heathen Hammer]

Can't help but chuckle at pro-American posterrs suggesting that US is in position to "not allow" Russia to annex her clay. Like what is US going to do, start a nuclear war? American military might got humbled by a ragtag religious militia. US is not in position to dictate Russia anything.

[Ludicus]

In fact, since hundreds or even thousand years, all great powers seek to enforce a sphere of influence. If my memory serves me right, for example, the Treaty of Tordesillas, the first international treaty of the modern era;the 1890 's British Ultimatum to Portugal (google "Pink Map"), and more recently,Kennedy's ultimatum to Krushev.

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Defending the defensible: The value of spheres of influence in the US Foreign Policy-Brookings (2015)...

Americans don’t like the idea of spheres of influence. The idea that large nations should push around small ones offends our sense of fair play.

We envision a world of plucky Davids, squaring off against autocratic Goliaths, with only American might available to right the balance and liberate the oppressed. And so when my colleague Robert Kagan sounds a clarion call to deny spheres of influence to countries like Russia and China, he appeals to a basic and laudable American instinct.

Despite this instinct, this is not a concept that has long informed American practice. To the contrary, the U.S promulgated the Monroe Doctrine specifically to establish a sphere of influence. Similarly, Franklin Roosevelt’s “Four Policemen” concept for the post-World War II order, which evolved into the UN Security Council, saw the world run by great powers.

In the words of historians Townsend Hoopes and Douglas Brinkley, “[t]his distinction between great and small nations quickly became a fundamental element of all U.S. postwar planning.” Even during the Cold War, the U.S. rarely challenged the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, essentially standing aside as Soviet forces crushed uprisings in East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland.

But after the Cold War ended and the Soviet sphere of influence collapsed, the United States began to champion a new idea in international relations: even small countries have the right to determine their own foreign policy and join any alliance they like. It is an idea with inherent moral appeal. But it is not a coincidence that this new idea came at a time when there were no U.S. peer competitors, that is when there was no other game in town.

For potential regional powers watching this advance, the issue is not whether great powers get to have a sphere of influence. Being relatively powerful countries, they accept as inevitable and even desirable that the powerful will have special privileges in geopolitics. Rather, the issue is whether the U.S. sphere of influence will continue to go right up to their doorstep and threaten their autonomy, or whether they will be able to push it back.

Conflict is only inevitable if the United States behaves as great powers often have in the past and seeks to deny rising powers what they is feel their due, thus contributing to their sense of insecurity. Spheres of influence, in contrast, have the capacity to make great powers feel more secure and to increase their willingness to cooperate within the larger liberal world order.

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There is a strange illness that affects 200 US diplomats around the world.Migraines, nausea, memory lapses and dizziness are the most common symptoms.Just a few hours ago, Blinken said the United States has raised the illnesses with the Russians. Blinken says US stumped over Havana syndrome as more diplomats fall ill.

The “Havana Syndrome” revisited, CUBA Unexplained Events Investigation - Final Report

The evaluations conducted thus far have not identified a mechanism of injury, process of exposure, effective treatment, or mitigating factor for the unexplained cluster of symptoms experienced by those stationed in Havana.

My differential diagnosis:

1. Psychogenic cause, mass hysteria.
2. A Martian energy weapon.
3. Most likely, a new Chinese virus developed/funded by American scientists. Fire Fauci.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", New York Times,Opinion | What's Causing 'Havana Syndrome,' Really?

If ‘Havana syndrome’ has mercifully yet to be used to agitate for war as concretely as the imaginary nukes of Iraq were, it’s clearly been seized on by a national security apparatus formidably expanded since 9/11 — and if more people don’t come to their senses, harm will surely result.

[Coughdrop addict]

Putin will invade and conquer Ukraine, that is a given. And why would he stop there if he can get away with it? Why not demand the return of "traditional Russian territories" like Poland and East Germany.

And after that, why not all of Europe?

And once the continent is one big gulag where will he go next?

Negotiations with Russia are pointless. What's there to negotiate? There are only two outcomes: Either Putin gets to grind the world under his heel because no one will stop him, or he is stopped by force.

[conon394]

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", New York Times,Opinion | What's Causing 'Havana Syndrome,' Really?

So now the NYT is less credulous too bad it was not over WMDs or Hillary's Emails (the horror)

[dogukan]

Washington's obsession with rivaling Russia does not mean Ukraine is a "US security concern".

The actions of Russian state apparatus and their support for anti-Western, anti-democracy groups all over the world is a major threat. Since the USSR, that state entity's biggest play was to divide West and beat it one by one. Hence why supporting anti-western, anti-liberal groups throughout the world serves the interest of the Russia regime. The divided West can then be eaten one by one as Moscow starts to call the shots.

Furthermore, Russia has been flexing it's muscles and voicing claims on various neighbouring nations in the Baltic, Ukraine and Central Asia. They are already making claims on Kazakhstan in Russian media.

Just recently we've seen them move into Kazakhstan to restore the order of authoritarian oligarchs who are leeching the country and serving Moscow. They tried the same in Ukraine. The fact that Russia is a menace to every individual person in the world who wants fair representation and a shot at a less-corrupt system, a democracy is good enough reason for me.

Nations of so much potential, including the people of Russia has to feed Moscow. They are not given access to any form of competitive elections. The people of Belarus also needs support from the West. Just recently we've seen people who want more from their lives protest which ended up with a crack down on activists..various assasinations have also occured. If you remain silent against such regimes, next thing you know, they'll start killing people who they don't like where you live to install their puppets.

If the peoples of the free world do not back each other, we are all under threat.
That does not mean countries have a right to go in and topple Russia, but Russia cannot be left to do whatever it wants. Russia here being the "deep state" of Russia; that is the military-industrial complex and KGB apparatus that pulls the strings at the background and shapes the whole country. Not the people of Russia.

These are their neighbours. What about the people in Russia? The opposition figures being silenced, jailed, sometimes even assasinated. For what? Some bureaucratic elite in the ex-Soviet military-intelligence positions ruining the potential of the people in Russia.

How far will this go? We have seen this before. If the liberal hegemons retreat like what happened in the 1920s-30s, authoritarian forces find a way to stir pots, declare wars, grab lands and engage in ethnic cleansing. There is no guarantee that the world can always pull a post-WWII cooperative order and a victory over authoritarian regimes.

The liberal factions all over the world has to be protected by a coalition of Western nations...and unfortunately, this is not a fight where both sides can co-exist on the long-run. Because the authoritarian regimes will always see the demands of democracy as a threat and will try to kill it at it's center..meaning they will also support authoritarian extremist groups in functioning liberal democracies (we've seen how divided USA became with the Trump issue. Russian online influence was obvious with that).

Every country in the world has liberal forces that wants to integrate to world and authoritarian-nationalist forces that wants to serve a domestic elite at the cost of people's wellbeing in their own country. This struggle is an endless one.

And yeah, as a Turkish citizen, I am speaking from experience. The only thing keeping Erdoğans's ultra-nationalist regime from going real harsh on opposition is the stick he might get from the world order and the West. That stick stops being a threat, next thing you know Armenia and Greece are erased from the map, Kurds ethnically cleansed and you have a major Islamism exporter in the Middle East.
Just as Russians support the far-right anti-liberal groups around the world, an Islamist Turkey could push such anti-Western influences thoughout Muslim populations. Especially in the West.
All of these are a threat unless the majority of the world is absorbed into a cooperative, open-system.

[Alexander78]

Take your guns and go into the trenches, sofa warriors. Stop shaking the air here for nothing. If you want to fight with Russia, go ahead. Yes, but first watch the video of how Kazakhstani "peaceful revolutionaries" cut the heads of soldiers of Kazakhstan, how a mother and child were torn in half in Donbass by a shell of ukronazists, count the number of NATO bases around Russia's borders and prepare your ears for another propaganda that will eventually lead you to an underground bunker at best. We have a saying: don't call trouble, otherwise it will come.

Well good luck.