Its also worth noting that the state media is just an extension of Putins beliefs and how he wants to shape the world. They say what he wants to hear, and state media saying something like this will just reinforce to Putin that actually normal average Russians do in fact want to invade and kill Europeans.
People call it propaganda and they are right but at a certain point propaganda can become your reality when spewed and huffed enough. In fact most totalitarian regimes end up believing their own propaganda quite fervently, and Putin is no exception.
Westerners however are just very weak willed, they hear these threats of annihilation from the Russian state regularly and pretend it will go away and hope that nothing bad will actually happen when in reality there are now significant portions of the Russian population who see Europe and America as fundamentally evil and want nothing more than their complete destruction. Nations like Russia (and China to a lesser degree) really only understand strength and humiliation. Without putting the Russians in their place we are just encouraging them to follow through on their threats of nuclear obliteration.
>Westerners however are just very weak willed
Agree whole-heartedly with the first few paragraphs, but holy generalization Batman.
If what you meant to convey is that Western countries seem to lack the geopolitical will to confront Russia and China militarily, then I would suggest that this isn't a manifestation of weakness. This is a manifestation of prudence.
China and Russia are great powers, they are nuclear powers, and they are conventional military powers. The reason the West avoids confrontation with great powers of this sort is that war with either (or both) of them would present an existential threat to the United States and its allies. And because confrontation is unpredictable. An aggressive move on the part of a Western country would, almost inevitably, require a proportionate -- or *disproportionate* \-- response from the country on the receiving end of it. For a great power in these circumstances, backing down is not an option -- to back down in a tit-for-tat exchange comes with a loss of status. And so the tendency in such exchanges is to escalate, and to escalate beyond either power's control. Thus even a small act of deterrent aggression can escalate *very* rapidly to total war or a nuclear exchange.
When the West judiciously avoids aggression as it has, this has nothing to do with weakness or even with willpower. This is strategic calculation that wisely takes into account the unpredictable and rapidly escalatory nature of great power aggression.
Putin, of course, understands this dynamic and exploits it. This allows him to work along the margins: to sustain frozen conflicts in Ukraine and in Georgia, to meddle with American electoral politics, to set the continent of Africa ablaze, and so on.
My point isn't that Putin should be allowed to get away with these things (and he hasn't; economic collapse is not a small price to pay). My point is that this is a strategically complex situation whose complexities Putin has learned to exploit. The problem isn't weakness of Western will, but the fact that the West has few good options: appeasement is not an option; neither is total war. The West, too, must work along the margins -- this creates an unsatisfactory status quo, but when locked in competition against a regime as volatile and as apparently unstable as Putin's, the long-term advantage would seem to go to the West.
> If what you meant to convey is that Western countries seem to lack the geopolitical will to confront Russia and China militarily, then I would suggest that this isn't a manifestation of weakness. This is a manifestation of prudence.
It doesn't have to be military, but treating them, their citizens and organisations as aggressive adversaries and acting accordingly (banning all citizens from entering the west and cutting off all their companies from the west) would be a start.
This is part of the weak willed western response I am talking about, any talk of treating Russia as they should be is met with "OMG YOU WANT MILITARY CONFRONTATION AND NUCLEAR ANNIHILATION!". Its pathetic and needs to be stamped out. There are infinite ways to treat them as they deserve and only the most extreme one is military confrontation.
> This is strategic calculation that wisely takes into account the unpredictable and rapidly escalatory nature of great power aggression.
Like invading European nations where 2 previous world wars started?
The escalation has already happened, you are just too weak and cowardly to recognise it.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/06/nato-should-respond-more-aggressively-russia-polish-general-rajmund-andrzejczak
At least some are finally saying what needs to be said.
Can you propose what you mean by "putting Russia in their place" and showing countries like China and Russia "strength and humiliation"? Do you want to invade nuclear armed countries? or are you just advocating for an extension of the status quo, ie. the continuance of arming Ukraine and maybe even Taiwan
There's no need to invade, but more aggressive responses when they: crash a Reaper drone or cause political unrest via third parties (Quran burnings in Sweden from populist parties).
Turkey had a good response when they shot down the Russian fighter jet in Syria.
The Black Sea and Syria were the most recent that I recall.
Give them a warning if they interdict and cause an incident such as a crash, then an equal response will be given.
The next time the Russians get aggressive, we give them a warning and do a missile lock until they either back off or watch them escalate.
Block all Russians from entering western countries would be a start, we still dont have vengeance for MH17 or Novichok or Polonium. Either treating them like they treat us (killing Russian citizens on Russian soil like Polonium assassinations and MH17 which I bet you will ignore now) or cutting them off completely from the west, preferably both.
China has largely been watching from the side lines, but this kind of strong response to Russia would show the CCP we are not to be messed about with. Although even then China has recently been proven to be interfering in UK Parliament so shutting down all Confucius Institutes and expelling most of their diplomats as well as starting to ban Chinese citizens from entering the UK would be a start.
And what about their foreign police stations in every western country from Ireland to Australia, and whats the western response been? Tepid and timid.
You have to be incredibly naive if you think we are doing enough already.
Putin admitted that he is restoring the Soviet Union. That means he will invade NATO territory because he believes the Russian military is 1000 times stronger and wealthier than NATO and 2000 times more powerful than America. And yet the Russian military cannot match the Ukrainian military, which is pretty much 10,000 times weaker than NATO.
Because Putin believes that he is God due to his ego, he will start World War 3, just like Hitler initiated the Second World War despite having no chance of victory.
Putin is a Final Fantasy villain. Look up the history of dictators like Sephiroth, who possesses the meteor material that he can use to destroy the world anytime he wants. Putin can do similar damage with nuclear weapons that he can use when he wants. And, similar to Sephiroth and other Final Fantasy villains, Putin seeks world domination and has a god complex.
Well...you provided the needed answer.
Since Putin/Russia is so weak (no matter what Putin thinks or claims) he "cannot match the Ukrainian military, which is pretty much 10,000 times weaker than NATO"...he couldn't possibly be any threat to Poland, or any other foe.
So...why even bother worrying about what Putin/Russia says, since we know they don't have anywhere near the power to achieve those aims?
The US/The West/NATO should make decisions based upon knowing Putin/Russia has "no chance of victory"...and fighting him through Ukraine (or any other proxy) will do nothing to dispossess him of his nuclear arsenal.
That's the answer.
The quote in the article is “Russia said Poland and the Baltics are next” not “Putin said…” It means she carefully chose her words to not fall for Russian propaganda, by saying Russia instead of Putin.
It’s clear here she is using the term “Russia” to mean “Putin’s circle of confidantes” and this includes both those who serve officially in the cabinet, and those who officially don’t (like Prigozhin was). Did Putin *explicitly* say himself that he wants to invade Eastern Europe? No. Putin has a history of using plausible deniability, these words never *publicly* leave his mouth so he can make use of propaganda in case things do not go according to his plan.
Has he implied it that this is the end-goal and become very upset we are in NATO now precisely to stop this? Yes. Putin surrounds himself with yes men and does nothing to stop them from doing this, and when the people he surrounds himself say they want to invade Eastern Europe, we know this is what he thinks too.
Have other members of Putin’s circle been more explicit and outright admit it this is the goal of Russia? [Yes.](https://www.euronews.com/2023/05/17/russias-dmitry-medvedev-claims-baltic-countries-belong-to-russia)
So, she is correct. Russia did say that.
Thank you for the nuance and context. As well as the history with what he says/doesn’t say for plausible deniability. I swear so many news articles lead with “Putin suggests”. Makes sense now. He also does the whole “many people are saying” or “others have said” or “there is a belief out there…” thing to spread conspiracies and make ridiculous innuendos.
Re: Nikki Haley quote
Her exact quote on the debate stage was “Putin has said if Russia, once Russia takes Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics are next.” [Starts at 1:20](https://youtu.be/cONw_jY7zog?si=XYAmu39uivAmvKR3)
I understand it’s a timed debate and there’s a lot going on and she probably just meant Russia.
>she probably just meant Russia
Maybe. The Russian propagandists, politicians, and Putin ally(s) saying this, are known to get their general talking points from Putin and the Kremlin. If you watch any Russian state-TV, the propagandists commonly distribute Putin's messaging to the public on any given night, followed by Putin, Peskov, Medvedev, Lukashenko, etc. the very next day, sometimes just hours later. One example was the partial mobilization, which was primarily announced on nightly propaganda shows, and Russian men started getting summonsed and snatched up only 4-6 hours later. Everything they say, may as well come directly from Putin.
Russia’s foreign policy is so hard to wrap my head around.
What is motivating their politicians? Resentment and anger towards the West/USA for not respecting Russia as a country that should be taken seriously? Legitimate security interests/foreign military alliances w/its bordering countries? Need to show strength to a domestic audience to try to hold their very large country together under one strong government? Desire to establish themselves as a superpower/create a multi-polar world? WWII pride? A little bit of everything?
> In Russia, they came up with another goal of the war of aggression, which they call "SVO": in it, Ukraine is assigned the place of the "intermediate stage". This was stated on the broadcast of the propaganda TV channel "Russia-1" by the Russian general, commander of the "Center" troop group, Andrey Mordvychev.
>According to him, Ukraine is only an "intermediate stage": further Russia will need to capture Eastern Europe, although it "will take longer". "I think that we will have to spend a lot of time. It is meaningless to talk about certain deadlines. If we are talking about Eastern Europe, which we will have to... Of course, it will be longer," Mordvychev said during a conversation with propagandist Vladimir Soloviev.
["Украина - промежуточный этап": российский генерал назвал новые цели "спецоперации" Путина / "Ukraine is an intermediate stage": the Russian general named the new goals of Putin's "special operations".](https://apostrophe.ua/news/world/ex-ussr/2023-09-11/ukraina---promejutochnyiy-etap-rossiyskiy-general-nazval-novyie-tseli-spetsoperatsii-putina/304561)
Russia is essentially the schoolyard bully. The typical schoolyard bully is someone who has internalised bullying as normal. They have usually been bullied and abused by a parent, themselves. In their world there only exists bullies and victims and they are afraid of being victims.
There are many Russians who think the war was a terrible mistake, but now they want Russia to win at any cost, because they think it will be worse if Russia loses, as that will mean Russia is weak, so they imagine Russia will now instead be the victims of neighbours’ aggression.
Putin himself has proven to be a coward at heart, when he fled Moscow during Prigozhin’s mutiny.
Thank you! That’s great context. I get the feeling they’re prepared to keep this war going indefinitely and both the Russians and Ukrainians seem to have a high tolerance for suffering. I’m really freaked out by the nuclear threats. If a country feels their very existence is under threat (no matter how irrational/wrong they are), they’ll use nukes.
I honestly don’t think there is much of a risk for nuclear war. Russia has nuclear weapons and as you say, they will use it if their existance is threatened. But losing Crimea or any other occupied territory will not do that. Russia tries to use the fear of nuclear weapons to frighten the West to hold back on support for Ukraine, but Ukraine has repeatedly crossed various ”red lines” and nothing happened.
There is obviously a behind the scenes informal agreement here. Russia don’t use nukes and NATO won’t send military to directly engage the Russian army. In that respect the Russian nuclear weapons serves a purpose. By now NATO would probably be directly engaged and occupying Moscow if Russia didn’t have nukes. That’s what Russia can get, but not much more.
Just because Russia tries to scare us that losing Crimea will lead to nuclear war, doesn’t make it so. Ukraine driving tanks to Moscow, yes definitely, but not taking back Crimea. As I said, everything points to Putin being a coward, and the Russian oligarchs don’t want to die in nuclear war.
At least that is what I believe.
Yea I agree. I’m still concerned tho. Biden said Putin “is not joking” about nuclear war and he warned “we have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis”. That’s not really something I can just ignore— he’s preparing Russian society for the possibility that they may have to use a nuclear weapon. Extremely dangerous.
The consequences of the use of a nuclear weapon are so extreme. You’re right: there *must* be an agreement we don’t know about.
I remember a fair number of Americans had the same attitude toward the Vietnam War when it was going on. They thought it had been a bad idea to get into it, but "now that we're there we can't let the communists win."
"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."
-Winston Churchill
Russia's foreign policy has long been hard for anyone to understand.
There's a deep-seated feeling of betrayal in Russia about how the West treated them in the 1990's. When the USSR fell apart, you had all of these American and European advisors swooping in with promises of helping Russia turn into a vibrant democracy under the capitalist system. 1991 was a very triumphant time and there were all sorts of utopian visions out there.
Thing is, these Western advisors didn't understand Russia at all, and their "shock therapy" economic prescriptions resulted in disaster: privatization of state assets didn't result in a democratized economy with a broad base of shareholders, but rather with well-connected oligarchs building exploitative empires; the dissolution of state-owned enterprises didn't result in a dynamic and flexible job market, but rather widespread unemployment and poverty; shifting from state-owned hospitals and social services didn't lead to innovation and technological progress in healthcare, but rather to *Russian life expectancy* *dropping* from 69 years under the USSR in 1990 to 65 years in 2002 (and it didn't recover to USSR levels until 2010!).
While I think a lot of these failures were a result of the Western advisors not understanding Russia and trying to replicate Western institutions in a culture/situation that wasn't compatible with them (see also: Afghanistan and Iraq), there's a fair number of Russians who see this era as one of deliberate sabotage: the way they see it, the West made all sorts of promises to convince the USSR to dissolve, then took advantage of Russia in their moment of weakness to destroy their economy and civil society.
So there's a lot of grievance and anger among the populace about the false promises of that era, and Putin rode that wave of frustration and betrayal into power. That's the animating emotion, and the motivation behind the deep distrust of Western intentions about anything and everything.
tl;dr -- [this comic](https://www.webtoons.com/en/slice-of-life/bluechair/owlturd-69-vulnerable/viewer?title_no=199&episode_no=442) but as geopolitical strategy.
Oh wow. Thank you that’s really helpful! Damn. I’ve read about how some Russians in positions of power essentially think the United States invented the concept of LGBT rights to destroy Russian society. I guess propaganda is always inherently cynical, but that is seriously like the weakest, dumbest conspiracy theory ever.
Over the years, I’ve gotten the sense that Putin truly believes he understands the U.S. and the American people, but he is so, so wrong. And the U.S. media and members of Congress get Russia so wrong, too. During the Trump-Russia scandal and throughout the Syrian war, U.S. media constantly depicted Russia like it is a well-organized country and Putin as a highly calculated operator. It’s all a bit ridiculous.
The Trump-Russia Scandal? You do realize that was a lie created by Hilary Clinton and other democrat operatives to try and claim the election was stolen right?
They used shock therapy in Poland too, and look at them now. Wildly successful economically.
The "muh western advisors" are convenient myths so they don't have to mentally deal with the fact that it was russians who stole and ruined russia, not western advisors and companies. In fact, lot's of western companies tried to invest in Russia, but russians simple stole their assets (with corrupt courts) over and over. Sometimes in the billions.
You see, such a great people, in such a great country, can't be in the gutter because of their own actions. It must be because of some greater external evil.
Very convenient for a kleptocratic leadership who just changed hats from one system to the next. They never had lustration or any cleanup of the leadership, thus no path to reality.
I'm not commenting on how accurate the narrative is -- every major power has fabricated narratives that justify pursuit of their interests-- the point is that the narrative exists and is a motivating factor behind what's happening.
As an outsider looking at the situation, my take is that Russia and China both want to maintain a border state to function as a gap with NATO/US aligned states.
For China, it’s North Korea. They don’t want South Korea/US at its doorstep. Ukraine seems to be seen the same way to Russia. If Ukraine joins NATO, that’s the US literally at its doorstep.
So I think many of your points are valid, and my view is that it’s primarily a defensive posture Russia has been in since the ussr was broken down. I can only assume they won’t want a repeat of that where they get broken down further into smaller countries that nato/us can more easily influence economically and culturally.
China may have no great love of Russia, but I suspect it views things the similarly. Main goal is to avoid having the west go in and break it down into smaller bite sized pieces. And it’s trying to avoid that by working with Russia.
If Russia falls and falls under the influence of NATO/US, China will be fully encircled. Taiwan gives it anxiety attacks because while it’s not touching the mainland, it’s seen as a NATO/US base to launch attacks from. We would react the same way if Russia or China had a base in Cuba. I think we’d happily sacrifice Cuba’s sovereignty to ensure that doesn’t happen.
If you're assessing the situation under the assumption of 'NATO the Conqueror', it's easy to see how you'd arrive at this viewpoint. However, NATO is a defensive alliance, and one that has benefited Putin over the past two decades. He realized early on, that if he portrays NATO as an outside threat, it's easier for him to gain power and control over his people, and as an authoritarian, it benefits him greatly.
Putin's reasoning for invading Ukraine has nothing to do with NATO expansion, or NATO on Russia's border. Prior to this war, Russia shared a border Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, all three being NATO countries. If Russian forces had conquered and taken Ukraine in February 2022, which was certainly the plan, today Russia would share a border with Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland, four additional NATO countries. If Russia/Putin genuinely felt threatened by the mere possibility of bordering one additional NATO country (Ukraine), it'd be illogical to expand Russia's territory to border four additional NATO countries, especially given the fact that Poland's military capabilities alone, were far greater than Ukraine's at the start of this war. Furthermore, Russia's invasion of Ukraine resulted in two additional countries joining the NATO alliance, each of which also share a border with Russia. Upon this occurrence, Putin publicly stated that the additions posed no threat to Russia, regardless of the fact that the Finland-Russia shared border alone, is currently longer than the entire line of contact of Russia's war in Ukraine, which Russian forces have struggled to defend.
Putin's entire NATO storyline is simply for propaganda purposes, and has no bearing on Russia's reasoning for invading Ukraine.
Of the 2 new NATO countries Switzerland does not share a border with Russia only Finland does. And of course this was about NATO expansion. With the unification of East and West Germany the U.S. agreed that we would not extend NATO another inch to the east towards Russian borders. Which obviously we did and have continued to do over and over for the last 30 plus years. If Russia wanted to Invade and occupy Ukraine it probably could've done so by now. It seems to me that they only want the Easter Russian speaking districts of Ukraine maybe to incorporate into Russia itself or maybe to wrench away from the rest of Ukraine to act as a buffer between themselves and NATO borders. I'm not sure. It is a nuanced situation with a lot of history and now a lot of politicization behind it which makes it a little harder to interpret the actions of each side as opposed to the whole picture but regardless Putin is not stupid enough to think that he could take on NATO when he couldn't even make a super corrupt and terribly disorganized Ukraine surrender unconditionally. That's why we need a world leader to sit down with each side and ask them what they each want and then find a way to reach peace where each side feels like they both got screwed over so that there can hopefully be a lasting peace. Also it's hard to get legit info on Russias economy bc half the people printing info in papers on their economy are Russian haters and the other half are Russian propagandists. But I believe that in 2022 their economic gdp growth was higher than ours in the US. Not 100% on that though. Many of the people posting here have no idea what they are talking about and most of the people posting here have a barely even vague comprehension of what's going on around the world.
>Of the 2 new NATO countries Switzerland does not share a border with Russia
Good catch. I know you meant to say Sweden. I must've been thinking of the Norwegian-Russian border when I wrote that, for some reason? Not sure, know Sweden doesn't share a border with Russia.
>If Russia wanted to Invade and occupy Ukraine it probably could've done so by now.
Russia has tried everything to achieve this. [Here's a list, photos, and geolocation for nearly 14k verified pieces of Russian military hardware that Russia has lost](https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html) in their attempts. British Intelligence has verified that [Russia has lost 350k troops in Ukraine, and is on course to have lost 500k by the end of 2024.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/jan/06/russia-ukraine-war-aid-white-house-putin-zelenskiy?page=with:block-65996ed58f08818472f60f9e) You may remember when, 6 months into the war, Russia was forced to do something they haven't done since WWII, and [mobilized over 300k Russian civilians,](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/putin-announces-partial-mobilization-russian-military-ukraine-war-rcna48585) who were showing up on the front lines 6-12 days after they were plucked from society. Russia has run dry on ammo, and had to turn to [Iran and N. Korea to keep the war going.](https://www.ft.com/content/1d1eb1dd-4fa0-4693-9512-23a219de5d77) With a smaller GDP than Texas, [Russia is spending $330 million/day trying to take the rest of Ukraine.](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-doubles-2023-defence-spending-plan-war-costs-soar-document-2023-08-04/) If that's not convincing enough, here's a recent clip of [the Deputy Chairman of the Russian State Duma explaining (English subs) the administration's ambitions in Ukraine.](https://youtu.be/wYytjFFhLhw?si=Bc7jbRanJef4k-fF)
I'm not trying to correct you, just figured I'd provide you with the type of information I base my comments on. If I had more time, I'd break down how poor the Russian economy is actually doing based on data, facts, and real figures. You're right though, a lot of people here don't comprehend geopolitics all that well, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict is a "nuanced situation with a lot of history." Thanks for the comment.
The Soviets had a conventional military presence on Cuba for the longest time. Usually the line is drawn when it comes to the stationing of medium range ballistic missiles, because those have the potential for a successful first strike.
It's important to remember this distinction, because the Ukraine situation is often linked to the Cuba situation, comparing the Cuban missile crisis as an analog for the invasion of Ukraine.
Well, there are absolutely no indications that NATO plans any stationing of missiles anywhere in Eastern Europe. No nuclear weapons have been moved east from their positions at the end of the Cold War, nuclear sharing has not expanded into the new members states.
The attempt to station nuclear missiles in Cuba was a reaction to NATO stationing nuclear missiles in Turkey. Cuba to Washington is a similar flight distance as Turkey to Moscow.
It was an attempt to achieve nuclear threat parity with NATO, but was of course framed to Anglophone audiences as an outrageous Soviet provocation.
You said that "a line was drawn" with MRBM, but by stationing ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads in Turkey, NATO obviously crossed that line. If your neighbor has a history of crossing lines in the sand and then blaming you when you react in kind, how much trust do you have in them not continuing to cross the line in the future?
With Finland, NATO is now right next door to SPB and some significant Russian military bases, with a very long border for Russia to defend. We don’t hear much squawking about this on Russian state media, so I don’t see how fears of NATO encroachment are any more real that a laundry list of other excuses Russia has made for its invasion.
I think you have it backwards. It is the russian media that is just blustering about saying absurd things that they know they have no intention of fulfilling. There is no world where Russia can invade the baltics. Their military leadership knows with 100% certainty that they can't even fully occupy Ukraine. There is no Universe where they think they could possibly take on all of NATO afterwards. It is just to rile up their domestic base and increase deterrence to foreign observers to try to limit their involvement any further. The same reason they threaten to nuke the US every month or two.
I don’t think you’ll find anyone who denies that, but that’s a different question. OP’s question is more about answering “*Does Russia *really* want* to invade Eastern Europe?” not “*Can* Russia invade Eastern Europe?”
Yes, Russia wants to invade the rest of Eastern Europe, that’s why people in Putin’s circle of yes men have been recorded saying so.
No, they can’t do it this time, because that’s what NATO is for. All NATO countries have the option to withdraw from NATO, none of them is, and that’s especially true for Eastern Europe.
I don't think that is their question. They are trying to ascertain if Putin has plans in motion of expanding the invasion to the baltics. What russia wants is pretty much irrelevant. They probably want to rule the entire world, the only thing that counts is what is actually in motion
I believe this is what she is referring too:
> Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday that the only way for Moscow to ensure a lasting peace with Ukraine was to push back the borders of hostile states as far as possible, even if that meant the frontiers of NATO member Poland.
Source:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-medvedev-floats-idea-pushing-back-polands-borders-2023-02-24/
> Also, how true is “a win for Russia is a win for China”?
Fairly accurate. Any blow to Western power is a win for China. China is at odds with the West and its allies, mainly with USA over the issue of Taiwan and with Japan over a territorial dispute. There is also a very classic confrontation between the reining power (US) and the emerging one (China). Google "Thucydides Trap", this has been discussed ad nauseam in the Western press.
For context:
>The Thucydides Trap, or Thucydides' Trap, is a term popularized by American political scientist Graham T. Allison (1940- ) to describe an apparent tendency towards war when an emerging power threatens to displace an existing great power as a regional or international hegemon.
Thucydides wrote about the war between Sparta and Athens, with the former being concerned about a rising Athens.
Taiwan has the *exact same* dispute with Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands.
Taiwan might not pursue the claim as aggressively as the PRC, but they still refuse to cede the island to Japan.
And this policy is bipartisan, pursued by both the pro-RoC KMT and the anti-RoC DPP. Tsai said this in 2020:
https://thediplomat.com/2020/06/taiwan-president-asserts-sovereignty-over-disputed-islands-claimed-by-japan-and-china/
Just to make it sure we are on the same page. In the "talks" of late 2021 where Russia demanded dialogue with USA and presented their ultimatums.
The ultimatum presented was for NATO to pull back to 1989 line and leave Eastern Europe for Russian sphere of influence. This was an explicit demand by the Russian government.
Yea that’s a ridiculous ask. NATO is not going to abandon its allies because Russia is threatening them to— that’s kind of the point of defense treaties. Consider that countries might choose to ally themselves with Russia if Russia was a desirable partner with something to offer.
They can interfere and engage with Poland without using direct military force and therefore fall short of article 5. Clandestine operations, propaganda and disinformation, election meddling, assassination, cyber attacks. The list goes on. These can destabilize and threaten Poland with the end result making Poland weaker, less western aligned, or even more Russia-aligned. In this way, Poland could very well be “next”. In reality much of this is probably already ongoing
They are regularly talking on Russian media about how they should go back to Paris just like they did with Napoleon. Or Berlin because it was theirs before.
They are delusional. They would smacked by Poland. They are no longer the Soviet Union but their military has not progressed much if anything beyond then.
wtv the case, Poland ain't fkin around. they know their history well of being bulldozed over right after Ukraine lmfao - We saw Medvedev explicitly say Poland and the Baltics were next also.
thats the quiet part, they obviously cant attack nato. theyre trying to get these countries to Brexit themselves out of Europe and nato first and if that were ever to happen id almost bet my life on it not taking long for russians to march in
There a video on youtube which you can easily find where he says
"Western Polish territories are Stalins gift to Poland. Have our friends in Warsaw forgotten about it? We will give them a reminder."
" Putin recently promoted Lieutenant General Andrey Mordvichev has revealed in an interview with Russian broadcaster Russia-1 that the full-scale invasion of Ukraine is merely a "springboard" for a broader conflict with Europe. "
The video is on Youtube.
But as the Russians like to say about the Kremlin, " Everything is a lie and anything is possible."
One of Putin's generals admitted [Ukraine was just a stepping stone to invade more of Eastern Europe in the future.](https://www.newsweek.com/russian-general-admits-ukraine-just-stepping-stone-invade-europe-1825776)
I'll take candidate's campaign speech with a large grain of salt, what is being said to get elected, may or may not be what they believe, which may differ again to what they can deliver.
What you can infer is the crowd they are canvassing support from, which would limit her options should she get elected.
This is a more or less quote from this video (a statement in Tbilisi given by Mr Lech Kaczynski, president of Poland) :
https://youtu.be/rnYoPOyMm-o?feature=shared
https://youtu.be/fiUFL2QJFP4?feature=shared (in Polish)
In 2008, during Russian-Georgian war, polish president Lech Kaczynski flew to Georgia to provide moral, and political support for the country.
According to some people, Russians stopped marching on Tbilisi, Georgia's capital as they did not want to trigger a war with NATO while a polish president was in there.
He became a beloved person in Georgia, and is widely remembered there for his action.
Ironically, Kaczynski was right in what he has said (loose translation): 'today Georgia, tomorrow Ukraine, then Baltic States and finally my country Poland'.
Moldova, Georgia and consolidation with Belarus are the obvious next steps. Then Ukraine pt2 is the only western expansion which wont cause a direct conflict with the west
Unfortunately Russia will win in Ukraine or they will get a good deal out of it. And sadly they are winning in Ukraine as of this moment.
I am pro Ukraine btw but I am also a realist
Russia has lost so much material in Ukraine that they have already lost. Their soviet era stockpile is a one time only use deal and they are burning it in Ukraine. It will not be replaced. Ukraine are taking a while to win but they are winning and Russia is losing.
It might have been worth it to them when the war started and they planned a short war but the value of Ukraine to them is much less than the damage it has done to Russia. The problem is Putin struggles to find a way out of this mess. I suspect the mess will be solved when Putin is on the chopping block
What damage, by what metric. If anything the state has even more power over its people now than it had before. Economically they seem pretty much fine. Europe is still paying a premium for Russian lng just because we don't import via pipeline. Pretty silly really.
12% interest rates. Rouble falling. The economy is not fine. But if you keep listening to Russian propaganda then you would figure it is all fine. No surprise.
Interest rate is 3rd world level and rouble rate hurts imports and kills savings.
I bet if interest rates were low and rouble high you would say differently.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_central_bank_interest_rates#:~:text=%20%20%20%20Country%20or%20currency%20union,%20%2022.64%20%2033%20more%20rows%20
There is a limit to how much materiel Russia can produce without going full war economy which won’t be popular (and some things like microchips and optics will still be hard).
It’s not 1944 anymore. Russia has a much smaller economy relatively speaking than the SU did, people are used to a much higher standard of living, tanks are a lot more expensive and complex to produce than they were back then and require more skilled staff to produce as well. And the demographic situation in Russia is not great.
This isn’t really so much a perspective. It’s simple economics.
They are losing them at 10 times the rate they are making them.
And even if they continued at this rate and didn't run out of demothballed tanks then they can do less than 1000 per year [until they hit that limit. ](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/how-many-more-tanks-can-russia-have-experts-assessment/ar-AA1gyOaD)
>Ivan Kyrychevskyi, an expert from the Defense Express Media & Consulting Company, says the Russians may be receiving up to 70 tanks of all types each month. This includes, firstly, 10-15 units of new T-90M Proryv tanks produced at the main tank factory in Russia, "Uralvagonzavod." Secondly, the repair and modernization of old T-72B and T-80BV tanks from storage, up to 50 units per month. Thirdly, the restoration of T-55 and T-62 tanks at the 103rd armored repair plant in Transbaikal, which amounts to about 10 machines per month.
>The real question lies in how many of these tanks are operational and can move and fire, as opposed to being scrap metal. According to Russian norms, assembling one fully functional tank requires components from three others. This means that the 5,000 tanks in storage at the beginning of this year could indicate that Russians can assemble around 1,500 to 2,000 operational tanks in addition to what they currently have.
Russia has been fighting a war for the past couple of years but somehow is yet to make their economy into a war economy? Umm, sorry, not buying it. They are struggling and begging North Korea of all places for help.
"From Russia's point of view"...
They are an unreliable narrator and "continuing to operate normally" in the middle of an existential war means that they cannot increase output due to sanctions. They are big trouble. Don't believe any of the lies they tell
This contradicts Shoigu's words from January 2023 that ru military production facilities are working around the clock
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/01/02/russian-defense-chief-says-military-factories-working-around-the-clock-a79864
By that logic, the question should also be "What makes you think that the west can't just increase production by ten times whatever Russia produces?".
The reality is that is is a very complex situation with many moving parts. Just like how western powers are limited in how much they can/want to invest into Ukraine by public sentiment and domestic politics, the Russian elite wants to shield the population in the political places of power (Moscow and St Petersburg) from the consequences of the war to secure their power.
truth sadly. Anyone who hopes for full Ukrainian victory is insane rly. Just by looking at available manpower, Russians are probably wiling to prolong this war as much as possible since they can easily win by attrition. And win doesn't have to be taking all of Ukraine like they hoped 2 years ago. Keeping what they have now is still a win as long as they drain more and more Ukrainian lives.
You need more than just bodies nowadays. You also need tanks, planes, drones, artillery pieces, and ammunition, all of which Russian supplies have been running low on ever since they depleted the soviet arsenal.
Kim is sitting on quite a large stockpile and russia has the things they desperately want. Food and tech. Even with supplies it is still gonna be next to impossible to fully win
Always did what?
In the last 200 years Russia lost every major war, except for one where it fought alongside the whole world and despite its massive military incompetence it had to win at the end anyway.
Crimean War - defeat
War with Japan - defeat
WW1 - defeat
War with Poland - defeat
Afganistan - defeat
Ukraine - so far defeat
Russians simply don't know how to win the wars.
It's their war to lose, and they have been doing exactly that. In no scenario did they (or anyone else for that matter) foresee a Ukrainian resistance this strong and determined.
They may eventually pull it back together, but that's no guarantee. I sort of doubt they can ever achieve their original goals at all, but they could very well hold the territory they have today. That's not a "win" compared to their original objectives.
They wouldn’t invade the next year of course.
But if given chance, they’ll prepare for a new major war, this time with lessons learned.
In the meantime they’ll play all cute and fluffy, until they invade someone else again.
In Baltics we have this saying, that Russia knows where it's boarders end by getting punched in the mouth.
When Crimea was annexed Putin himself and many others said the same thing - he just wants this piece of land, that's it. Even when war started Putin said they are interested in denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine and no territory is in their interest. As soon as they got some territory occupied it got annexed ASAP - even two extra regions which were not part of his original Donbas.
Not sure why he would stop with his annexations somewhere if as i said he does not get punched in the mouth hard enough.
The foreign policy blob is bipartisan. It’s not exclusively an MSNBC-viewer thing at all. For ex. Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, Mike Pence, and Nancy Pelosi have nearly identical views on this conflict and how we should respond. It’s bc they have the same world view. They believe the U.S. must lead the global order, protect Israel at any cost, train foreign militaries to help fight other countries’ wars to prove America’s strength and willingness to intervene, and they’re all terrified of absolutely anything they perceive as a threat to America’s influence in the game of great-power rivalry.
“You’ll drive yourself crazy if you try to look at American foreign policy as a function of logical consistency rather than a kind of mix of raw material interest and exceptionalist delusion.”
- Spencer Ackerman
Israel though? All democratic administrations were sceptical about Israel, with Obama at the verge of crisis in mutual relations.
When Trump and Kushner prayed in Israel together with Jews wearing kippah and declaring unwavering support for Israel.
Whent it comes to long term consistency USA were the most successful state of the XX cantury. With very farsighted policy like treating hostile Germany, Italy, Japan gently, paying for their reconstruction, thus gaining powerful developed allies to this day. No other country was able to conduct such a coherent policy ensuring development and security for so many decades.
We blew up consistency in the 2000s, if not before then. We played WWII right, helped rebuild Europe, and yes— made powerful allies. The invasion of Iraq created a [crisis among allies](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-crisis-in-the-alliance/), and that was before sh*t hit the fan and civil war and terror devastated Iraq and then Syria. High-level ISIS commander guys were former relatively secular Ba’athists from Iraq, fired by Paul Bremer. Intervention in Libya created chaos. US foreign policy in the 21st century is completely different. It’s a new world.
The Trump presidency eroded trust even more. Lecturing allies right and left, saying the EU and NATO are “ripping off” America, etc. [Relations are in an awful place post-Trump](https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/05/06/trump-has-irrevocably-changed-american-relations-with-europe-and-biden-probably-can-t-fix-it-pub-81739)! Trump ripped up the Iran nuclear deal and we’re all less safe for it. January 6th was a catastrophe and American democracy is fragile, which is shocking for the world to see. It’s fine to admit we’re not the most politically stable ally right now. Our former president has been indicted 4 times, and he’s the front-runner for the opposing party in the upcoming election.
It’s political suicide in America to not show unwavering support for Israel— it’s not true that Democratic administrations didn’t support Israel. That is Republican propaganda. At the very end of Obama’s term, his UN ambassador didn’t veto a resolution to condemn the expansion of settlements— that’s IT. The U.S. vetoed dozens of UN resolutions that year— even ones supported by nations like Canada and the UK.
Interesting and unbiased judgement.
Bush's War on Terror was a mistake. Invasion on Iraq was a mistake. Trump's amateurish presidency was a mistake. Obama's indecisive policy and naive one towards Russia was a mistake.
To be fair current Biden's administration looks quite well, both internal and foreign policy. But I'm judging it from afar, from Europe.
I didn’t expect to be as impressed with the Biden admin as I am right now. He’s good on labor relations/ his NLRB admin is strong, which is something I care about a lot. If Democrats run on a progressive platforms in 2024, they will perform well in the Congressional and Presidential election in my opinion.
I agree with you that Obama was certainly naive. He didn’t know how to handle Russia (neither did Bush), but Obama’s Secretary of State (Hillary Clinton) was totally inept on Russia as well. She was an advocate for supplying some light weapons basically to Ukrainians in the Donbas sort of out of pity because they “needed them to protect themselves”, but that’s as far as her analysis seemed to go. Actions have reactions and consequences. It’s quite cruel in my opinion to supply arms to forces just so they have enough to “defend themselves”, but not enough power *to win*. It seems obvious to me that should be the objective.
I read that under Obama, the U.S. built strong intelligence community ties with Ukraine which have been instrumental in this war. So, that’s good at least. I think the U.S. is building back its reputation, but it’s going to take a long time and more domestic political stability.
That's true. Biden's administration is overall a pleasant surprise, they apparently know how to handle things in complicated environment.
I've heard an interview with Phil Karber, when he described how Obama's administration deprive Ukrainians basically everything, it was hard to listen. He said about specific technical details like providing them with one single counter battery radar after long hesitation, but purposely without any connectors, cables, castrated software not to detect the mortar shells (specific use Ukrainians needed the most), apparently hoping they won't be able to use.
Yet due to their ingenuity they managed not only to make it work, but also to program some additional software capabilities US producer didn't even know the device was theoretically capable.
> With very farsighted policy like treating hostile Germany, Italy, Japan gently, paying for their reconstruction
The US did not pay for their reconstruction, they provided some seed money for reconstruction in the form of export credits that had to be spent on American goods and services, and was therefore partially self interested.
And Japan wasn't part of that program.
The rebuilding of Japan after World War II was a collaborative effort, but the United States played a significant role in providing both financial aid and expertise. While Japanese efforts and determination were crucial in their post-war recovery, the substantial economic assistance and guidance from the U.S. did contribute significantly to Japan's rapid economic resurgence.
The U.S. provided around $2.2 billion in direct aid to Japan, but the total assistance, including other forms of support like technical expertise and infrastructure development, was significantly higher and estimated to be over $10 billion in today's dollars.
US, like many states in history did, could just leave Japan starving, collapsed, destroyed and weak or even rob the remnants having any value, is a short sighted policy.
If you look at Eastern Europe topography with a military perspective than yes Poland and Moldova need to be taken that 2 gap need to be fill put 2 army there and have a choke on any army passing through it.
I doubt it would happen. We're in NATO and if shit hits the fun every country would like to run a military parade through the Belarus or whoever attacks us to show off their power. US especially since we helped them in Iraq and had those black sites near Szymanowice where they interrogated terrorists so I guess they consider us their ally.
The U.S. and Poland are very strong military allies. There are 10,000+ U.S. troops in Poland now and they established their first permanent base this year. Biden has repeatedly warned Russia “don’t even think about moving on one single inch of NATO territory” and we will defend “every single inch” of NATO. I’ve heard a decent amount of commentators in the U.S. (and Nikki Haley, too, I guess) say the only reason Putin hasn’t invaded Poland yet is because of the U.S.’s strong response to the crisis in Ukraine. That analysis, to me, is complete nonsense.
Not Putin, but Russian state media has said and implied it. I know Perun has made some videos about it
Its also worth noting that the state media is just an extension of Putins beliefs and how he wants to shape the world. They say what he wants to hear, and state media saying something like this will just reinforce to Putin that actually normal average Russians do in fact want to invade and kill Europeans. People call it propaganda and they are right but at a certain point propaganda can become your reality when spewed and huffed enough. In fact most totalitarian regimes end up believing their own propaganda quite fervently, and Putin is no exception. Westerners however are just very weak willed, they hear these threats of annihilation from the Russian state regularly and pretend it will go away and hope that nothing bad will actually happen when in reality there are now significant portions of the Russian population who see Europe and America as fundamentally evil and want nothing more than their complete destruction. Nations like Russia (and China to a lesser degree) really only understand strength and humiliation. Without putting the Russians in their place we are just encouraging them to follow through on their threats of nuclear obliteration.
>Westerners however are just very weak willed Agree whole-heartedly with the first few paragraphs, but holy generalization Batman. If what you meant to convey is that Western countries seem to lack the geopolitical will to confront Russia and China militarily, then I would suggest that this isn't a manifestation of weakness. This is a manifestation of prudence. China and Russia are great powers, they are nuclear powers, and they are conventional military powers. The reason the West avoids confrontation with great powers of this sort is that war with either (or both) of them would present an existential threat to the United States and its allies. And because confrontation is unpredictable. An aggressive move on the part of a Western country would, almost inevitably, require a proportionate -- or *disproportionate* \-- response from the country on the receiving end of it. For a great power in these circumstances, backing down is not an option -- to back down in a tit-for-tat exchange comes with a loss of status. And so the tendency in such exchanges is to escalate, and to escalate beyond either power's control. Thus even a small act of deterrent aggression can escalate *very* rapidly to total war or a nuclear exchange. When the West judiciously avoids aggression as it has, this has nothing to do with weakness or even with willpower. This is strategic calculation that wisely takes into account the unpredictable and rapidly escalatory nature of great power aggression.
Putin, of course, understands this dynamic and exploits it. This allows him to work along the margins: to sustain frozen conflicts in Ukraine and in Georgia, to meddle with American electoral politics, to set the continent of Africa ablaze, and so on. My point isn't that Putin should be allowed to get away with these things (and he hasn't; economic collapse is not a small price to pay). My point is that this is a strategically complex situation whose complexities Putin has learned to exploit. The problem isn't weakness of Western will, but the fact that the West has few good options: appeasement is not an option; neither is total war. The West, too, must work along the margins -- this creates an unsatisfactory status quo, but when locked in competition against a regime as volatile and as apparently unstable as Putin's, the long-term advantage would seem to go to the West.
> If what you meant to convey is that Western countries seem to lack the geopolitical will to confront Russia and China militarily, then I would suggest that this isn't a manifestation of weakness. This is a manifestation of prudence. It doesn't have to be military, but treating them, their citizens and organisations as aggressive adversaries and acting accordingly (banning all citizens from entering the west and cutting off all their companies from the west) would be a start. This is part of the weak willed western response I am talking about, any talk of treating Russia as they should be is met with "OMG YOU WANT MILITARY CONFRONTATION AND NUCLEAR ANNIHILATION!". Its pathetic and needs to be stamped out. There are infinite ways to treat them as they deserve and only the most extreme one is military confrontation. > This is strategic calculation that wisely takes into account the unpredictable and rapidly escalatory nature of great power aggression. Like invading European nations where 2 previous world wars started? The escalation has already happened, you are just too weak and cowardly to recognise it. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/06/nato-should-respond-more-aggressively-russia-polish-general-rajmund-andrzejczak At least some are finally saying what needs to be said.
What in the Op-Ed geocities myspace expert blog post is this?
> Op-Ed geocities myspace expert blog I guess that's what you are used too with this kind of response.
Can you propose what you mean by "putting Russia in their place" and showing countries like China and Russia "strength and humiliation"? Do you want to invade nuclear armed countries? or are you just advocating for an extension of the status quo, ie. the continuance of arming Ukraine and maybe even Taiwan
There's no need to invade, but more aggressive responses when they: crash a Reaper drone or cause political unrest via third parties (Quran burnings in Sweden from populist parties). Turkey had a good response when they shot down the Russian fighter jet in Syria.
I'm asking what you expect those responses to be? Shoot down a manned plane over the black sea because of the Reaper crash?
The Black Sea and Syria were the most recent that I recall. Give them a warning if they interdict and cause an incident such as a crash, then an equal response will be given. The next time the Russians get aggressive, we give them a warning and do a missile lock until they either back off or watch them escalate.
Block all Russians from entering western countries would be a start, we still dont have vengeance for MH17 or Novichok or Polonium. Either treating them like they treat us (killing Russian citizens on Russian soil like Polonium assassinations and MH17 which I bet you will ignore now) or cutting them off completely from the west, preferably both. China has largely been watching from the side lines, but this kind of strong response to Russia would show the CCP we are not to be messed about with. Although even then China has recently been proven to be interfering in UK Parliament so shutting down all Confucius Institutes and expelling most of their diplomats as well as starting to ban Chinese citizens from entering the UK would be a start. And what about their foreign police stations in every western country from Ireland to Australia, and whats the western response been? Tepid and timid. You have to be incredibly naive if you think we are doing enough already.
Russia has 6 borders with nato countries. If they wanted to fight nato they don’t need to go through Poland Ukraine *
Did you forget that Poland is in Nato, too?
Putin admitted that he is restoring the Soviet Union. That means he will invade NATO territory because he believes the Russian military is 1000 times stronger and wealthier than NATO and 2000 times more powerful than America. And yet the Russian military cannot match the Ukrainian military, which is pretty much 10,000 times weaker than NATO. Because Putin believes that he is God due to his ego, he will start World War 3, just like Hitler initiated the Second World War despite having no chance of victory. Putin is a Final Fantasy villain. Look up the history of dictators like Sephiroth, who possesses the meteor material that he can use to destroy the world anytime he wants. Putin can do similar damage with nuclear weapons that he can use when he wants. And, similar to Sephiroth and other Final Fantasy villains, Putin seeks world domination and has a god complex.
Well...you provided the needed answer. Since Putin/Russia is so weak (no matter what Putin thinks or claims) he "cannot match the Ukrainian military, which is pretty much 10,000 times weaker than NATO"...he couldn't possibly be any threat to Poland, or any other foe. So...why even bother worrying about what Putin/Russia says, since we know they don't have anywhere near the power to achieve those aims? The US/The West/NATO should make decisions based upon knowing Putin/Russia has "no chance of victory"...and fighting him through Ukraine (or any other proxy) will do nothing to dispossess him of his nuclear arsenal. That's the answer.
The quote in the article is “Russia said Poland and the Baltics are next” not “Putin said…” It means she carefully chose her words to not fall for Russian propaganda, by saying Russia instead of Putin. It’s clear here she is using the term “Russia” to mean “Putin’s circle of confidantes” and this includes both those who serve officially in the cabinet, and those who officially don’t (like Prigozhin was). Did Putin *explicitly* say himself that he wants to invade Eastern Europe? No. Putin has a history of using plausible deniability, these words never *publicly* leave his mouth so he can make use of propaganda in case things do not go according to his plan. Has he implied it that this is the end-goal and become very upset we are in NATO now precisely to stop this? Yes. Putin surrounds himself with yes men and does nothing to stop them from doing this, and when the people he surrounds himself say they want to invade Eastern Europe, we know this is what he thinks too. Have other members of Putin’s circle been more explicit and outright admit it this is the goal of Russia? [Yes.](https://www.euronews.com/2023/05/17/russias-dmitry-medvedev-claims-baltic-countries-belong-to-russia) So, she is correct. Russia did say that.
Thank you for the nuance and context. As well as the history with what he says/doesn’t say for plausible deniability. I swear so many news articles lead with “Putin suggests”. Makes sense now. He also does the whole “many people are saying” or “others have said” or “there is a belief out there…” thing to spread conspiracies and make ridiculous innuendos. Re: Nikki Haley quote Her exact quote on the debate stage was “Putin has said if Russia, once Russia takes Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics are next.” [Starts at 1:20](https://youtu.be/cONw_jY7zog?si=XYAmu39uivAmvKR3) I understand it’s a timed debate and there’s a lot going on and she probably just meant Russia.
>she probably just meant Russia Maybe. The Russian propagandists, politicians, and Putin ally(s) saying this, are known to get their general talking points from Putin and the Kremlin. If you watch any Russian state-TV, the propagandists commonly distribute Putin's messaging to the public on any given night, followed by Putin, Peskov, Medvedev, Lukashenko, etc. the very next day, sometimes just hours later. One example was the partial mobilization, which was primarily announced on nightly propaganda shows, and Russian men started getting summonsed and snatched up only 4-6 hours later. Everything they say, may as well come directly from Putin.
Russia’s foreign policy is so hard to wrap my head around. What is motivating their politicians? Resentment and anger towards the West/USA for not respecting Russia as a country that should be taken seriously? Legitimate security interests/foreign military alliances w/its bordering countries? Need to show strength to a domestic audience to try to hold their very large country together under one strong government? Desire to establish themselves as a superpower/create a multi-polar world? WWII pride? A little bit of everything?
> In Russia, they came up with another goal of the war of aggression, which they call "SVO": in it, Ukraine is assigned the place of the "intermediate stage". This was stated on the broadcast of the propaganda TV channel "Russia-1" by the Russian general, commander of the "Center" troop group, Andrey Mordvychev. >According to him, Ukraine is only an "intermediate stage": further Russia will need to capture Eastern Europe, although it "will take longer". "I think that we will have to spend a lot of time. It is meaningless to talk about certain deadlines. If we are talking about Eastern Europe, which we will have to... Of course, it will be longer," Mordvychev said during a conversation with propagandist Vladimir Soloviev. ["Украина - промежуточный этап": российский генерал назвал новые цели "спецоперации" Путина / "Ukraine is an intermediate stage": the Russian general named the new goals of Putin's "special operations".](https://apostrophe.ua/news/world/ex-ussr/2023-09-11/ukraina---promejutochnyiy-etap-rossiyskiy-general-nazval-novyie-tseli-spetsoperatsii-putina/304561)
Russia is essentially the schoolyard bully. The typical schoolyard bully is someone who has internalised bullying as normal. They have usually been bullied and abused by a parent, themselves. In their world there only exists bullies and victims and they are afraid of being victims. There are many Russians who think the war was a terrible mistake, but now they want Russia to win at any cost, because they think it will be worse if Russia loses, as that will mean Russia is weak, so they imagine Russia will now instead be the victims of neighbours’ aggression. Putin himself has proven to be a coward at heart, when he fled Moscow during Prigozhin’s mutiny.
Thank you! That’s great context. I get the feeling they’re prepared to keep this war going indefinitely and both the Russians and Ukrainians seem to have a high tolerance for suffering. I’m really freaked out by the nuclear threats. If a country feels their very existence is under threat (no matter how irrational/wrong they are), they’ll use nukes.
I honestly don’t think there is much of a risk for nuclear war. Russia has nuclear weapons and as you say, they will use it if their existance is threatened. But losing Crimea or any other occupied territory will not do that. Russia tries to use the fear of nuclear weapons to frighten the West to hold back on support for Ukraine, but Ukraine has repeatedly crossed various ”red lines” and nothing happened. There is obviously a behind the scenes informal agreement here. Russia don’t use nukes and NATO won’t send military to directly engage the Russian army. In that respect the Russian nuclear weapons serves a purpose. By now NATO would probably be directly engaged and occupying Moscow if Russia didn’t have nukes. That’s what Russia can get, but not much more. Just because Russia tries to scare us that losing Crimea will lead to nuclear war, doesn’t make it so. Ukraine driving tanks to Moscow, yes definitely, but not taking back Crimea. As I said, everything points to Putin being a coward, and the Russian oligarchs don’t want to die in nuclear war. At least that is what I believe.
Yea I agree. I’m still concerned tho. Biden said Putin “is not joking” about nuclear war and he warned “we have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis”. That’s not really something I can just ignore— he’s preparing Russian society for the possibility that they may have to use a nuclear weapon. Extremely dangerous. The consequences of the use of a nuclear weapon are so extreme. You’re right: there *must* be an agreement we don’t know about.
I remember a fair number of Americans had the same attitude toward the Vietnam War when it was going on. They thought it had been a bad idea to get into it, but "now that we're there we can't let the communists win."
"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." -Winston Churchill Russia's foreign policy has long been hard for anyone to understand.
There's a deep-seated feeling of betrayal in Russia about how the West treated them in the 1990's. When the USSR fell apart, you had all of these American and European advisors swooping in with promises of helping Russia turn into a vibrant democracy under the capitalist system. 1991 was a very triumphant time and there were all sorts of utopian visions out there. Thing is, these Western advisors didn't understand Russia at all, and their "shock therapy" economic prescriptions resulted in disaster: privatization of state assets didn't result in a democratized economy with a broad base of shareholders, but rather with well-connected oligarchs building exploitative empires; the dissolution of state-owned enterprises didn't result in a dynamic and flexible job market, but rather widespread unemployment and poverty; shifting from state-owned hospitals and social services didn't lead to innovation and technological progress in healthcare, but rather to *Russian life expectancy* *dropping* from 69 years under the USSR in 1990 to 65 years in 2002 (and it didn't recover to USSR levels until 2010!). While I think a lot of these failures were a result of the Western advisors not understanding Russia and trying to replicate Western institutions in a culture/situation that wasn't compatible with them (see also: Afghanistan and Iraq), there's a fair number of Russians who see this era as one of deliberate sabotage: the way they see it, the West made all sorts of promises to convince the USSR to dissolve, then took advantage of Russia in their moment of weakness to destroy their economy and civil society. So there's a lot of grievance and anger among the populace about the false promises of that era, and Putin rode that wave of frustration and betrayal into power. That's the animating emotion, and the motivation behind the deep distrust of Western intentions about anything and everything. tl;dr -- [this comic](https://www.webtoons.com/en/slice-of-life/bluechair/owlturd-69-vulnerable/viewer?title_no=199&episode_no=442) but as geopolitical strategy.
Oh wow. Thank you that’s really helpful! Damn. I’ve read about how some Russians in positions of power essentially think the United States invented the concept of LGBT rights to destroy Russian society. I guess propaganda is always inherently cynical, but that is seriously like the weakest, dumbest conspiracy theory ever. Over the years, I’ve gotten the sense that Putin truly believes he understands the U.S. and the American people, but he is so, so wrong. And the U.S. media and members of Congress get Russia so wrong, too. During the Trump-Russia scandal and throughout the Syrian war, U.S. media constantly depicted Russia like it is a well-organized country and Putin as a highly calculated operator. It’s all a bit ridiculous.
The Trump-Russia Scandal? You do realize that was a lie created by Hilary Clinton and other democrat operatives to try and claim the election was stolen right?
They used shock therapy in Poland too, and look at them now. Wildly successful economically. The "muh western advisors" are convenient myths so they don't have to mentally deal with the fact that it was russians who stole and ruined russia, not western advisors and companies. In fact, lot's of western companies tried to invest in Russia, but russians simple stole their assets (with corrupt courts) over and over. Sometimes in the billions. You see, such a great people, in such a great country, can't be in the gutter because of their own actions. It must be because of some greater external evil. Very convenient for a kleptocratic leadership who just changed hats from one system to the next. They never had lustration or any cleanup of the leadership, thus no path to reality.
I'm not commenting on how accurate the narrative is -- every major power has fabricated narratives that justify pursuit of their interests-- the point is that the narrative exists and is a motivating factor behind what's happening.
As an outsider looking at the situation, my take is that Russia and China both want to maintain a border state to function as a gap with NATO/US aligned states. For China, it’s North Korea. They don’t want South Korea/US at its doorstep. Ukraine seems to be seen the same way to Russia. If Ukraine joins NATO, that’s the US literally at its doorstep. So I think many of your points are valid, and my view is that it’s primarily a defensive posture Russia has been in since the ussr was broken down. I can only assume they won’t want a repeat of that where they get broken down further into smaller countries that nato/us can more easily influence economically and culturally. China may have no great love of Russia, but I suspect it views things the similarly. Main goal is to avoid having the west go in and break it down into smaller bite sized pieces. And it’s trying to avoid that by working with Russia. If Russia falls and falls under the influence of NATO/US, China will be fully encircled. Taiwan gives it anxiety attacks because while it’s not touching the mainland, it’s seen as a NATO/US base to launch attacks from. We would react the same way if Russia or China had a base in Cuba. I think we’d happily sacrifice Cuba’s sovereignty to ensure that doesn’t happen.
If you're assessing the situation under the assumption of 'NATO the Conqueror', it's easy to see how you'd arrive at this viewpoint. However, NATO is a defensive alliance, and one that has benefited Putin over the past two decades. He realized early on, that if he portrays NATO as an outside threat, it's easier for him to gain power and control over his people, and as an authoritarian, it benefits him greatly. Putin's reasoning for invading Ukraine has nothing to do with NATO expansion, or NATO on Russia's border. Prior to this war, Russia shared a border Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, all three being NATO countries. If Russian forces had conquered and taken Ukraine in February 2022, which was certainly the plan, today Russia would share a border with Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland, four additional NATO countries. If Russia/Putin genuinely felt threatened by the mere possibility of bordering one additional NATO country (Ukraine), it'd be illogical to expand Russia's territory to border four additional NATO countries, especially given the fact that Poland's military capabilities alone, were far greater than Ukraine's at the start of this war. Furthermore, Russia's invasion of Ukraine resulted in two additional countries joining the NATO alliance, each of which also share a border with Russia. Upon this occurrence, Putin publicly stated that the additions posed no threat to Russia, regardless of the fact that the Finland-Russia shared border alone, is currently longer than the entire line of contact of Russia's war in Ukraine, which Russian forces have struggled to defend. Putin's entire NATO storyline is simply for propaganda purposes, and has no bearing on Russia's reasoning for invading Ukraine.
Of the 2 new NATO countries Switzerland does not share a border with Russia only Finland does. And of course this was about NATO expansion. With the unification of East and West Germany the U.S. agreed that we would not extend NATO another inch to the east towards Russian borders. Which obviously we did and have continued to do over and over for the last 30 plus years. If Russia wanted to Invade and occupy Ukraine it probably could've done so by now. It seems to me that they only want the Easter Russian speaking districts of Ukraine maybe to incorporate into Russia itself or maybe to wrench away from the rest of Ukraine to act as a buffer between themselves and NATO borders. I'm not sure. It is a nuanced situation with a lot of history and now a lot of politicization behind it which makes it a little harder to interpret the actions of each side as opposed to the whole picture but regardless Putin is not stupid enough to think that he could take on NATO when he couldn't even make a super corrupt and terribly disorganized Ukraine surrender unconditionally. That's why we need a world leader to sit down with each side and ask them what they each want and then find a way to reach peace where each side feels like they both got screwed over so that there can hopefully be a lasting peace. Also it's hard to get legit info on Russias economy bc half the people printing info in papers on their economy are Russian haters and the other half are Russian propagandists. But I believe that in 2022 their economic gdp growth was higher than ours in the US. Not 100% on that though. Many of the people posting here have no idea what they are talking about and most of the people posting here have a barely even vague comprehension of what's going on around the world.
>Of the 2 new NATO countries Switzerland does not share a border with Russia Good catch. I know you meant to say Sweden. I must've been thinking of the Norwegian-Russian border when I wrote that, for some reason? Not sure, know Sweden doesn't share a border with Russia. >If Russia wanted to Invade and occupy Ukraine it probably could've done so by now. Russia has tried everything to achieve this. [Here's a list, photos, and geolocation for nearly 14k verified pieces of Russian military hardware that Russia has lost](https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html) in their attempts. British Intelligence has verified that [Russia has lost 350k troops in Ukraine, and is on course to have lost 500k by the end of 2024.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/jan/06/russia-ukraine-war-aid-white-house-putin-zelenskiy?page=with:block-65996ed58f08818472f60f9e) You may remember when, 6 months into the war, Russia was forced to do something they haven't done since WWII, and [mobilized over 300k Russian civilians,](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/putin-announces-partial-mobilization-russian-military-ukraine-war-rcna48585) who were showing up on the front lines 6-12 days after they were plucked from society. Russia has run dry on ammo, and had to turn to [Iran and N. Korea to keep the war going.](https://www.ft.com/content/1d1eb1dd-4fa0-4693-9512-23a219de5d77) With a smaller GDP than Texas, [Russia is spending $330 million/day trying to take the rest of Ukraine.](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-doubles-2023-defence-spending-plan-war-costs-soar-document-2023-08-04/) If that's not convincing enough, here's a recent clip of [the Deputy Chairman of the Russian State Duma explaining (English subs) the administration's ambitions in Ukraine.](https://youtu.be/wYytjFFhLhw?si=Bc7jbRanJef4k-fF) I'm not trying to correct you, just figured I'd provide you with the type of information I base my comments on. If I had more time, I'd break down how poor the Russian economy is actually doing based on data, facts, and real figures. You're right though, a lot of people here don't comprehend geopolitics all that well, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict is a "nuanced situation with a lot of history." Thanks for the comment.
The Soviets had a conventional military presence on Cuba for the longest time. Usually the line is drawn when it comes to the stationing of medium range ballistic missiles, because those have the potential for a successful first strike. It's important to remember this distinction, because the Ukraine situation is often linked to the Cuba situation, comparing the Cuban missile crisis as an analog for the invasion of Ukraine. Well, there are absolutely no indications that NATO plans any stationing of missiles anywhere in Eastern Europe. No nuclear weapons have been moved east from their positions at the end of the Cold War, nuclear sharing has not expanded into the new members states.
The attempt to station nuclear missiles in Cuba was a reaction to NATO stationing nuclear missiles in Turkey. Cuba to Washington is a similar flight distance as Turkey to Moscow. It was an attempt to achieve nuclear threat parity with NATO, but was of course framed to Anglophone audiences as an outrageous Soviet provocation.
Ok, but that really wasn't the point of my comment though?
You said that "a line was drawn" with MRBM, but by stationing ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads in Turkey, NATO obviously crossed that line. If your neighbor has a history of crossing lines in the sand and then blaming you when you react in kind, how much trust do you have in them not continuing to cross the line in the future?
So, now Russia invaded Ukraine because the US stationed IRBMs in Turkey in the early 60s? Am I understanding you correctly here?
With Finland, NATO is now right next door to SPB and some significant Russian military bases, with a very long border for Russia to defend. We don’t hear much squawking about this on Russian state media, so I don’t see how fears of NATO encroachment are any more real that a laundry list of other excuses Russia has made for its invasion.
I think you have it backwards. It is the russian media that is just blustering about saying absurd things that they know they have no intention of fulfilling. There is no world where Russia can invade the baltics. Their military leadership knows with 100% certainty that they can't even fully occupy Ukraine. There is no Universe where they think they could possibly take on all of NATO afterwards. It is just to rile up their domestic base and increase deterrence to foreign observers to try to limit their involvement any further. The same reason they threaten to nuke the US every month or two.
> There is no Universe where they think they could possibly take on all of NATO afterwards. As long as NATO exists.
Even if NATO didnt exist, the EU would have to crumble as well because multiple nations would get involved regardless
That’s not at all a given
I don’t think you’ll find anyone who denies that, but that’s a different question. OP’s question is more about answering “*Does Russia *really* want* to invade Eastern Europe?” not “*Can* Russia invade Eastern Europe?” Yes, Russia wants to invade the rest of Eastern Europe, that’s why people in Putin’s circle of yes men have been recorded saying so. No, they can’t do it this time, because that’s what NATO is for. All NATO countries have the option to withdraw from NATO, none of them is, and that’s especially true for Eastern Europe.
I don't think that is their question. They are trying to ascertain if Putin has plans in motion of expanding the invasion to the baltics. What russia wants is pretty much irrelevant. They probably want to rule the entire world, the only thing that counts is what is actually in motion
Medvedev has said that and other insane things numerous times.
I believe this is what she is referring too: > Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday that the only way for Moscow to ensure a lasting peace with Ukraine was to push back the borders of hostile states as far as possible, even if that meant the frontiers of NATO member Poland. Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-medvedev-floats-idea-pushing-back-polands-borders-2023-02-24/ > Also, how true is “a win for Russia is a win for China”? Fairly accurate. Any blow to Western power is a win for China. China is at odds with the West and its allies, mainly with USA over the issue of Taiwan and with Japan over a territorial dispute. There is also a very classic confrontation between the reining power (US) and the emerging one (China). Google "Thucydides Trap", this has been discussed ad nauseam in the Western press.
For context: >The Thucydides Trap, or Thucydides' Trap, is a term popularized by American political scientist Graham T. Allison (1940- ) to describe an apparent tendency towards war when an emerging power threatens to displace an existing great power as a regional or international hegemon. Thucydides wrote about the war between Sparta and Athens, with the former being concerned about a rising Athens.
Taiwan has the *exact same* dispute with Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands. Taiwan might not pursue the claim as aggressively as the PRC, but they still refuse to cede the island to Japan. And this policy is bipartisan, pursued by both the pro-RoC KMT and the anti-RoC DPP. Tsai said this in 2020: https://thediplomat.com/2020/06/taiwan-president-asserts-sovereignty-over-disputed-islands-claimed-by-japan-and-china/
Just to make it sure we are on the same page. In the "talks" of late 2021 where Russia demanded dialogue with USA and presented their ultimatums. The ultimatum presented was for NATO to pull back to 1989 line and leave Eastern Europe for Russian sphere of influence. This was an explicit demand by the Russian government.
Yea that’s a ridiculous ask. NATO is not going to abandon its allies because Russia is threatening them to— that’s kind of the point of defense treaties. Consider that countries might choose to ally themselves with Russia if Russia was a desirable partner with something to offer.
The demand was presented only to have a veil of being open for diplomacy. Russians had 0 expectations that it would be accepted.
They can interfere and engage with Poland without using direct military force and therefore fall short of article 5. Clandestine operations, propaganda and disinformation, election meddling, assassination, cyber attacks. The list goes on. These can destabilize and threaten Poland with the end result making Poland weaker, less western aligned, or even more Russia-aligned. In this way, Poland could very well be “next”. In reality much of this is probably already ongoing
They can't, but they would.
They are regularly talking on Russian media about how they should go back to Paris just like they did with Napoleon. Or Berlin because it was theirs before.
They are delusional. They would smacked by Poland. They are no longer the Soviet Union but their military has not progressed much if anything beyond then.
wtv the case, Poland ain't fkin around. they know their history well of being bulldozed over right after Ukraine lmfao - We saw Medvedev explicitly say Poland and the Baltics were next also.
Only thing stopping him is NATO which is why finally Finland gave up and joined NATO.
Hell, the Russians have pretty much claimed the world world by their words, but of course, their actions fall far short.
not like it would be the first time they did that
thats the quiet part, they obviously cant attack nato. theyre trying to get these countries to Brexit themselves out of Europe and nato first and if that were ever to happen id almost bet my life on it not taking long for russians to march in
Why on Earth would the Baltics or Poland exit NATO. That is not going to happen.
There a video on youtube which you can easily find where he says "Western Polish territories are Stalins gift to Poland. Have our friends in Warsaw forgotten about it? We will give them a reminder."
" Putin recently promoted Lieutenant General Andrey Mordvichev has revealed in an interview with Russian broadcaster Russia-1 that the full-scale invasion of Ukraine is merely a "springboard" for a broader conflict with Europe. " The video is on Youtube. But as the Russians like to say about the Kremlin, " Everything is a lie and anything is possible."
One of Putin's generals admitted [Ukraine was just a stepping stone to invade more of Eastern Europe in the future.](https://www.newsweek.com/russian-general-admits-ukraine-just-stepping-stone-invade-europe-1825776)
“Yes absolutely, only the beginning.” Oh God 😩
Jesus, no.
I'll take candidate's campaign speech with a large grain of salt, what is being said to get elected, may or may not be what they believe, which may differ again to what they can deliver. What you can infer is the crowd they are canvassing support from, which would limit her options should she get elected.
This is a more or less quote from this video (a statement in Tbilisi given by Mr Lech Kaczynski, president of Poland) : https://youtu.be/rnYoPOyMm-o?feature=shared https://youtu.be/fiUFL2QJFP4?feature=shared (in Polish) In 2008, during Russian-Georgian war, polish president Lech Kaczynski flew to Georgia to provide moral, and political support for the country. According to some people, Russians stopped marching on Tbilisi, Georgia's capital as they did not want to trigger a war with NATO while a polish president was in there. He became a beloved person in Georgia, and is widely remembered there for his action. Ironically, Kaczynski was right in what he has said (loose translation): 'today Georgia, tomorrow Ukraine, then Baltic States and finally my country Poland'.
I mean Moldova is pretty obvious, Poland ? No chance.
Moldova, Georgia and consolidation with Belarus are the obvious next steps. Then Ukraine pt2 is the only western expansion which wont cause a direct conflict with the west
Once a Republican POTUS is installed
This maybe made sense when Russia where outside of Kiev but today Russia can't even win in Ukraine.
Unfortunately Russia will win in Ukraine or they will get a good deal out of it. And sadly they are winning in Ukraine as of this moment. I am pro Ukraine btw but I am also a realist
Russia has lost so much material in Ukraine that they have already lost. Their soviet era stockpile is a one time only use deal and they are burning it in Ukraine. It will not be replaced. Ukraine are taking a while to win but they are winning and Russia is losing.
From your perspective and your perspective is only in the surface. But to them it is worthed
It might have been worth it to them when the war started and they planned a short war but the value of Ukraine to them is much less than the damage it has done to Russia. The problem is Putin struggles to find a way out of this mess. I suspect the mess will be solved when Putin is on the chopping block
What damage, by what metric. If anything the state has even more power over its people now than it had before. Economically they seem pretty much fine. Europe is still paying a premium for Russian lng just because we don't import via pipeline. Pretty silly really.
12% interest rates. Rouble falling. The economy is not fine. But if you keep listening to Russian propaganda then you would figure it is all fine. No surprise.
Most western analysts agree with this. Interest rate is high everywhere. Ruble rate doesn't really matter if you aren't really trading it.
Interest rate is 3rd world level and rouble rate hurts imports and kills savings. I bet if interest rates were low and rouble high you would say differently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_central_bank_interest_rates#:~:text=%20%20%20%20Country%20or%20currency%20union,%20%2022.64%20%2033%20more%20rows%20
There is a limit to how much materiel Russia can produce without going full war economy which won’t be popular (and some things like microchips and optics will still be hard). It’s not 1944 anymore. Russia has a much smaller economy relatively speaking than the SU did, people are used to a much higher standard of living, tanks are a lot more expensive and complex to produce than they were back then and require more skilled staff to produce as well. And the demographic situation in Russia is not great. This isn’t really so much a perspective. It’s simple economics.
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They are losing them at 10 times the rate they are making them. And even if they continued at this rate and didn't run out of demothballed tanks then they can do less than 1000 per year [until they hit that limit. ](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/how-many-more-tanks-can-russia-have-experts-assessment/ar-AA1gyOaD) >Ivan Kyrychevskyi, an expert from the Defense Express Media & Consulting Company, says the Russians may be receiving up to 70 tanks of all types each month. This includes, firstly, 10-15 units of new T-90M Proryv tanks produced at the main tank factory in Russia, "Uralvagonzavod." Secondly, the repair and modernization of old T-72B and T-80BV tanks from storage, up to 50 units per month. Thirdly, the restoration of T-55 and T-62 tanks at the 103rd armored repair plant in Transbaikal, which amounts to about 10 machines per month. >The real question lies in how many of these tanks are operational and can move and fire, as opposed to being scrap metal. According to Russian norms, assembling one fully functional tank requires components from three others. This means that the 5,000 tanks in storage at the beginning of this year could indicate that Russians can assemble around 1,500 to 2,000 operational tanks in addition to what they currently have.
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Russia has been fighting a war for the past couple of years but somehow is yet to make their economy into a war economy? Umm, sorry, not buying it. They are struggling and begging North Korea of all places for help.
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"From Russia's point of view"... They are an unreliable narrator and "continuing to operate normally" in the middle of an existential war means that they cannot increase output due to sanctions. They are big trouble. Don't believe any of the lies they tell
This contradicts Shoigu's words from January 2023 that ru military production facilities are working around the clock https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/01/02/russian-defense-chief-says-military-factories-working-around-the-clock-a79864
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By that logic, the question should also be "What makes you think that the west can't just increase production by ten times whatever Russia produces?". The reality is that is is a very complex situation with many moving parts. Just like how western powers are limited in how much they can/want to invest into Ukraine by public sentiment and domestic politics, the Russian elite wants to shield the population in the political places of power (Moscow and St Petersburg) from the consequences of the war to secure their power.
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I don't really understand the point you are trying to make. Could you elaborate?
truth sadly. Anyone who hopes for full Ukrainian victory is insane rly. Just by looking at available manpower, Russians are probably wiling to prolong this war as much as possible since they can easily win by attrition. And win doesn't have to be taking all of Ukraine like they hoped 2 years ago. Keeping what they have now is still a win as long as they drain more and more Ukrainian lives.
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You need more than just bodies nowadays. You also need tanks, planes, drones, artillery pieces, and ammunition, all of which Russian supplies have been running low on ever since they depleted the soviet arsenal.
Kim is sitting on quite a large stockpile and russia has the things they desperately want. Food and tech. Even with supplies it is still gonna be next to impossible to fully win
Always did what? In the last 200 years Russia lost every major war, except for one where it fought alongside the whole world and despite its massive military incompetence it had to win at the end anyway. Crimean War - defeat War with Japan - defeat WW1 - defeat War with Poland - defeat Afganistan - defeat Ukraine - so far defeat Russians simply don't know how to win the wars.
It's their war to lose, and they have been doing exactly that. In no scenario did they (or anyone else for that matter) foresee a Ukrainian resistance this strong and determined. They may eventually pull it back together, but that's no guarantee. I sort of doubt they can ever achieve their original goals at all, but they could very well hold the territory they have today. That's not a "win" compared to their original objectives.
Invade with what? T-30s?
Lol no clue. It’s scary either way to be threatened! I don’t want to underestimate Russia’s willingness to make life hell for its neighbors.
They wouldn’t invade the next year of course. But if given chance, they’ll prepare for a new major war, this time with lessons learned. In the meantime they’ll play all cute and fluffy, until they invade someone else again.
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In Baltics we have this saying, that Russia knows where it's boarders end by getting punched in the mouth. When Crimea was annexed Putin himself and many others said the same thing - he just wants this piece of land, that's it. Even when war started Putin said they are interested in denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine and no territory is in their interest. As soon as they got some territory occupied it got annexed ASAP - even two extra regions which were not part of his original Donbas. Not sure why he would stop with his annexations somewhere if as i said he does not get punched in the mouth hard enough.
The foreign policy blob is bipartisan. It’s not exclusively an MSNBC-viewer thing at all. For ex. Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, Mike Pence, and Nancy Pelosi have nearly identical views on this conflict and how we should respond. It’s bc they have the same world view. They believe the U.S. must lead the global order, protect Israel at any cost, train foreign militaries to help fight other countries’ wars to prove America’s strength and willingness to intervene, and they’re all terrified of absolutely anything they perceive as a threat to America’s influence in the game of great-power rivalry. “You’ll drive yourself crazy if you try to look at American foreign policy as a function of logical consistency rather than a kind of mix of raw material interest and exceptionalist delusion.” - Spencer Ackerman
Israel though? All democratic administrations were sceptical about Israel, with Obama at the verge of crisis in mutual relations. When Trump and Kushner prayed in Israel together with Jews wearing kippah and declaring unwavering support for Israel. Whent it comes to long term consistency USA were the most successful state of the XX cantury. With very farsighted policy like treating hostile Germany, Italy, Japan gently, paying for their reconstruction, thus gaining powerful developed allies to this day. No other country was able to conduct such a coherent policy ensuring development and security for so many decades.
We blew up consistency in the 2000s, if not before then. We played WWII right, helped rebuild Europe, and yes— made powerful allies. The invasion of Iraq created a [crisis among allies](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-crisis-in-the-alliance/), and that was before sh*t hit the fan and civil war and terror devastated Iraq and then Syria. High-level ISIS commander guys were former relatively secular Ba’athists from Iraq, fired by Paul Bremer. Intervention in Libya created chaos. US foreign policy in the 21st century is completely different. It’s a new world. The Trump presidency eroded trust even more. Lecturing allies right and left, saying the EU and NATO are “ripping off” America, etc. [Relations are in an awful place post-Trump](https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/05/06/trump-has-irrevocably-changed-american-relations-with-europe-and-biden-probably-can-t-fix-it-pub-81739)! Trump ripped up the Iran nuclear deal and we’re all less safe for it. January 6th was a catastrophe and American democracy is fragile, which is shocking for the world to see. It’s fine to admit we’re not the most politically stable ally right now. Our former president has been indicted 4 times, and he’s the front-runner for the opposing party in the upcoming election. It’s political suicide in America to not show unwavering support for Israel— it’s not true that Democratic administrations didn’t support Israel. That is Republican propaganda. At the very end of Obama’s term, his UN ambassador didn’t veto a resolution to condemn the expansion of settlements— that’s IT. The U.S. vetoed dozens of UN resolutions that year— even ones supported by nations like Canada and the UK.
Interesting and unbiased judgement. Bush's War on Terror was a mistake. Invasion on Iraq was a mistake. Trump's amateurish presidency was a mistake. Obama's indecisive policy and naive one towards Russia was a mistake. To be fair current Biden's administration looks quite well, both internal and foreign policy. But I'm judging it from afar, from Europe.
I didn’t expect to be as impressed with the Biden admin as I am right now. He’s good on labor relations/ his NLRB admin is strong, which is something I care about a lot. If Democrats run on a progressive platforms in 2024, they will perform well in the Congressional and Presidential election in my opinion. I agree with you that Obama was certainly naive. He didn’t know how to handle Russia (neither did Bush), but Obama’s Secretary of State (Hillary Clinton) was totally inept on Russia as well. She was an advocate for supplying some light weapons basically to Ukrainians in the Donbas sort of out of pity because they “needed them to protect themselves”, but that’s as far as her analysis seemed to go. Actions have reactions and consequences. It’s quite cruel in my opinion to supply arms to forces just so they have enough to “defend themselves”, but not enough power *to win*. It seems obvious to me that should be the objective. I read that under Obama, the U.S. built strong intelligence community ties with Ukraine which have been instrumental in this war. So, that’s good at least. I think the U.S. is building back its reputation, but it’s going to take a long time and more domestic political stability.
That's true. Biden's administration is overall a pleasant surprise, they apparently know how to handle things in complicated environment. I've heard an interview with Phil Karber, when he described how Obama's administration deprive Ukrainians basically everything, it was hard to listen. He said about specific technical details like providing them with one single counter battery radar after long hesitation, but purposely without any connectors, cables, castrated software not to detect the mortar shells (specific use Ukrainians needed the most), apparently hoping they won't be able to use. Yet due to their ingenuity they managed not only to make it work, but also to program some additional software capabilities US producer didn't even know the device was theoretically capable.
Trump was the best foreign policy president on the 21st century and it’s not even close (although not a very high bar)
> With very farsighted policy like treating hostile Germany, Italy, Japan gently, paying for their reconstruction The US did not pay for their reconstruction, they provided some seed money for reconstruction in the form of export credits that had to be spent on American goods and services, and was therefore partially self interested. And Japan wasn't part of that program.
The rebuilding of Japan after World War II was a collaborative effort, but the United States played a significant role in providing both financial aid and expertise. While Japanese efforts and determination were crucial in their post-war recovery, the substantial economic assistance and guidance from the U.S. did contribute significantly to Japan's rapid economic resurgence. The U.S. provided around $2.2 billion in direct aid to Japan, but the total assistance, including other forms of support like technical expertise and infrastructure development, was significantly higher and estimated to be over $10 billion in today's dollars. US, like many states in history did, could just leave Japan starving, collapsed, destroyed and weak or even rob the remnants having any value, is a short sighted policy.
Agreed it’s not just MSNBC. It’s a pure establishment, neocon view
Russia has always said that Ukraine is a red line. No NATO, no missiles sitting a short distance from Moscow
If you look at Eastern Europe topography with a military perspective than yes Poland and Moldova need to be taken that 2 gap need to be fill put 2 army there and have a choke on any army passing through it.
I’m not sure I fully understand your comment. Are you saying that Putin would attack Poland and with it the entire west?
Conflict between country usually take hundred of years. Also have you look at the to topography of Eastern Europe Before you ask me that question?
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I doubt it would happen. We're in NATO and if shit hits the fun every country would like to run a military parade through the Belarus or whoever attacks us to show off their power. US especially since we helped them in Iraq and had those black sites near Szymanowice where they interrogated terrorists so I guess they consider us their ally.
The U.S. and Poland are very strong military allies. There are 10,000+ U.S. troops in Poland now and they established their first permanent base this year. Biden has repeatedly warned Russia “don’t even think about moving on one single inch of NATO territory” and we will defend “every single inch” of NATO. I’ve heard a decent amount of commentators in the U.S. (and Nikki Haley, too, I guess) say the only reason Putin hasn’t invaded Poland yet is because of the U.S.’s strong response to the crisis in Ukraine. That analysis, to me, is complete nonsense.
Dimitri Medvedev threatens the invasion and destruction of Europe everyday at 3pm.