Geopolitics in the 2020s.

[Zetterlund]

2 hours ago, welshbairn said:

Do you think the hundred thousand Russian troops moved up to the Ukrainian borders are there in case Ukraine decides to invade Russia?

Don't take my word for it - as I said the Ukrainians themselves are not worried about an invasion. It would be crazy for Russia not to have extra troops on the border though, given the events of the last few years.

it would be absolute suicide for Putin to invade. Is he an evil genius or a complete idiot? As with all official baddies, we're supposed to believe he is both at the same time.. 

[renton]

1 hour ago, Zetterlund said:

Don't take my word for it - as I said the Ukrainians themselves are not worried about an invasion. It would be crazy for Russia not to have extra troops on the border though, given the events of the last few years.

it would be absolute suicide for Putin to invade. Is he an evil genius or a complete idiot? As with all official baddies, we're supposed to believe he is both at the same time.. 

It's 100,000 troops including a shit tonne of armour well up front - they won't be able to keep that concentration of troops forward deployed for more than a few months. They have also dragged up extra long range artillery and the combat engineering groups.

Don't get me wrong, this is still in all liklihood some kind of feint or attempt at wringing concessions, but I don't buy that it's a defensive deployment purely to guard a border against an opponent they already overmatch.

[welshbairn]

8 hours ago, Zetterlund said:

An ex-security chief just said the only purpose of the war propaganda is to turn his country into a NATO arms depot.

Who was this out of interest?

[Detournement]

4 hours ago, welshbairn said:

Do you think the hundred thousand Russian troops moved up to the Ukrainian borders are there in case Ukraine decides to invade Russia?

No they are there in case NATO decides to invade Donbass.

[renton]

13 minutes ago, Detournement said:

No they are there in case NATO decides to invade Donbass.

How is NATO going to do that?

[Anonapersona]

14 minutes ago, Detournement said:

No they are there in case NATO decides to invade Donbass.

Of course they are. In the land of platinum foil hats.

[Detournement]

3 minutes ago, renton said:

How is NATO going to do that?

The same way that the USA illegally occupies a huge area of Syria. 

They did not stage a coup in Ukraine for the Donbass to become another Southern Ossetia. They want Ukraine in NATO which will require military action. 

Edited January 18, 2022 by Detournement

[renton]

6 minutes ago, Detournement said:

The same way that the USA illegally occupies a huge area of Syria. 

They did not stage a coup in Ukraine for the Donbass to become another Southern Ossetia. They want Ukraine in NATO which will require military action. 

... and how will this military action take shape?

[Detournement]

15 minutes ago, renton said:

... and how will this military action take shape?

My guess is similar to Libya. A Ukranian offensive which goes nowhere but NATO will announce they have to support to prevent a completely invented hypothetical outcome. 

The fact that you are acting as if this impossible despite the examples of Syria, Iraq and Libya is a perfect example of how too much imperialist media can smooth a brain.

Speaking of Libya....

 

Edited January 18, 2022 by Detournement

[renton]

24 minutes ago, Detournement said:

My guess is similar to Libya. A Ukranian offensive which goes nowhere but NATO will announce they have to support to prevent a completely invented hypothetical outcome. 

The fact that you are acting as if this impossible despite the examples of Syria, Iraq and Libya is a perfect example of how too much imperialist media can smooth a brain.

Speaking of Libya....

 

NATO isn't getting into an armed conflict with Russia over Ukraine. It would fall apart - even the idea of sending arms to Ukraine has split NATO members with Germany being opposed. Here's a hint: what does Russia have, that Iraq, Syria and Libya don't?

Meanwhile you are advancing the notion that despite being surrounded on 3 sides, and hopelessly overmatched in a number of key areas, Ukraine is going to launch an offensive into the Donbass while leaving the road to Kiev pretty much open in the face of a massive forward deployment of Russian mechanised forces.

One of these two sides is deployed for an offensive and it isn't the Ukranians. Its not the Ukrainians who have been writing screeds about pan russian identity and the threat of encroachment from their neighbours, which sounds fairly imperialistic to me.

Its not the Ukrainians forward deploying the biggest mechanised force since the first Gulf War. It takes a lot of money and effort to do that and it won't be something the Russians can sustain through the Summer (a defensive deployment is one you can sustain long term, an offensive one is one you can't sustain because you have loaded it up enough to overmatch your opponent)

So is the idea that NATO will try to rapidly deploy heavy forces into the region while the Russians are on the (counter) attack? Or is going to be the dozen or so boys there already who are going to go 'over the top' flinging their training manuals at Russian tanks?

Edited January 18, 2022 by renton

[Detournement]

I think there will be an incident (the prehyped false flag) and then a rush from both sides for territory. 

As you say they won't engage each other but like in Syria they can change the facts on the ground without coming into direct conflict. 

Talking about Russia going to Kiev is nonsense. This flashpoint is about settling the future of the Donbass. 

 

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, Detournement said:

The fact that you are acting as if this impossible despite the examples of Syria, Iraq and Libya is a perfect example of how too much imperialist media can smooth a brain.

Ironic you should be talking about the imperialist west when this is all about Russia trying to get back control over its former empire.

[NotThePars]

Ironic you should be talking about the imperialist west when this is all about Russia trying to get back control over its former empire.

Why are they trying to do that ?

[Zetterlund]

3 hours ago, welshbairn said:

Who was this out of interest?

Doubt I could find it now, was just something I came across on twitter. Easy enough to find quotes from the current admin in Ukraine downplaying the threat though, basically saying western newspapers do not reflect reality.

FWIW I think the US and NATO are very separate entities with different goals in Ukraine. The US still has the neocon mindset of trying (and demonstrably failing over the last decade) to remain the sole global superpower, so it can run around doing what it likes serving its corporate overlords. It has used NATO towards this in the past.

NATO on the other hand is simply a gigantic arms lobby, behaving like a predatory corporation absorbing new sources of income. They have no interest in actually fighting Russia but every interest in keeping it on the brink, and to this end Ukraine would be the holy grail of acquisitions. 

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, NotThePars said:

Why are they trying to do that ?

Certain functionaries of the old Empire have been furious ever since Gorbachev and Yeltsin allowed it to secede.

[vikingTON]

3 hours ago, renton said:

Meanwhile you are advancing the notion that despite being surrounded on 3 sides, and hopelessly overmatched in a number of key areas, Ukraine is going to launch an offensive into the Donbass while leaving the road to Kiev pretty much open in the face of a massive forward deployment of Russian mechanised forces.

It's like you've never opened a history book before to work out that statesmen make these sort of gambles all the fucking time. So long as Ukraine's leaders are paranoid about a certain Russian existential threat to their regime and are unreconciled to the loss of its eastern borderlands, all bets on what Kiev will do next are off.

You also overlook that a Ukrainian offensive in the Donbass would not actually give Russia a casus belli to launch a full-scale offensive on Kiev. That is precisely the type of move that a nationalist Ukrainian regime may well consider and hope that the consequences bring it under the umbrella of NATO. 

Quote

Its not the Ukrainians who have been writing screeds about pan russian identity and the threat of encroachment from their neighbours, which sounds fairly imperialistic to me.

The Ukrainian regime has disregarded the rights of its substantial Russian speaking minority population, as well as the national aspirations of the Ruthenian movement in its western borderlands. Its government is ratcheting up insane claims that Ukraine is the key to the security of every single state in Europe - despite Europe getting along just fine minus any Soviet successor state for 45 years. 

There are two hysterical imperial projects at work in the region* so a contest of strength between them is hardly surprising. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*three including NATO

Edited January 18, 2022 by vikingTON

[Fullerene]

2 hours ago, NotThePars said:

Why are they trying to do that ?

Russia would like to maintain its sphere of influence.  Since 1989, Central Europe is gone and so are the 3 Baltic states.

I can understand their hostility to Ukraine becoming a neighbouring country that ignores them completely.

[NotThePars]

I don't think it's a surprise that Russia continue to interfere  in their neighbours given they were made all these assurances that NATO wouldn't expand east and it subsequently did. There's no reason for Russia to trust anything more than its own expansion.

[ICTChris]

Here is a good article about the build up and the background to it.

https://www.fpri.org/article/2022/01/moscows-compellence-strategy/
 

Rob Lee is a good follow on Twitter for Russian and ex Soviet military stuff. He has a huge thread documenting the current build up.

From what I can ascertain it’s more likely than not that there will be an escalation in the war. 

Edited January 18, 2022 by ICTChris

[vikingTON]

15 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

Here is a good article about the build up and the background to it.

https://www.fpri.org/article/2022/01/moscows-compellence-strategy/
 

Rob Lee is a good follow on Twitter for Russian and ex Soviet military stuff. He has a huge thread documenting the current build up.

Very interesting and the analysis of Russia's options presents a compelling case for conflict soon.

The reality is that Russia was always going to expand its sphere of influence after the nadir of the 1990s. NATO's eastward expansion has created a viable foreign bogeyman to justify this reassertion of power but did not cause it. Political sovereignty is limited by geopolitics and Ukraine's leaders are not much more likely to succeed in building a serious deterrent threat to Moscow without conflict than Castro was at keeping nukes on Cuba. 

The questions for Russia are all long-term. After Putin eventually leaves the largely unchecked decay of its economy outside of Moscow and a handful of other centres will overwhelm its makeshift system. There is nothing to be gained by either poking a hopelessly decaying military superpower right now, or the West bluffing Ukraine into acting as its gormless champion. But as IR is largely treated as a child's morality play we will no doubt lollop into doing both.