Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Detournement]

1 hour ago, Newbornbairn said:

Firstly - Ukraine isn't losing 1000 troops a day,

https://www.axios.com/2022/06/15/ukraine-1000-casualties-day-donbas-arakhamia

One of Zelensky's senior officials said they presently are losing 1000 a day just in the Donbass.

[Detournement]

I love this place.

Today the White House are briefing that Ukraine needs to lower expectations and has thrown Blinken and Austin under the bus by saying that any idea that Ukraine would win didn't come from Biden personally. Then Dormolin comes on and states that Ukraine actually won the war two months ago and it's just that our inferior brains hadn't noticed yet.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/secretaries-defense-state-said-publicly-us-wanted-ukraine-win-biden-sa-rcna33826

Edited June 16, 2022 by Detournement

[jagfox]

[vikingTON]

1 hour ago, Newbornbairn said:

The parallels with the 1930s are stark. Our fearless left wing freedom fighters (keyboard division) have been ranting about fascists and dictators for years, but here we have a bona fide totalitarian dictatorship invading another country for no other reason than conquest and to subjugate a neighbour - using the same murderous tactics used in Chechnya and Syria. There's plenty of evidence of war crimes, mass murder, widespread rape and civilians being decanted to camps in Russia. If history teaches us anything it's that regimes like this don't stop of their own volition. Look at Israel. 

This is my favourite part of that truly unhinged post - nothing like citing Israel as a reason why Something Must Be Done by the West. Looking forward to the Western rocket shipments to Gaza!

Meanwhile, History actually shows us that the majority of the world has usually been run by regimes that do not fit the cuddly, liberal democratic standard and are willing to use force to 'defend' their essential state interests (however those are perceived). Rather than having a pointless hand-wringing meltdown about this, the onus is on the adults in the room to identify what limits they can define for the action of those states (containment) without doing ruinous harm to their own interests. 

Edited June 16, 2022 by vikingTON

[DiegoDiego]

Nobody's won or lost the war yet. It's still ongoing.

[jagfox]

 

 

[welshbairn]

14 minutes ago, virginton said:

the onus is on the adults in the room to identify what limits they can define for the action of those states (containment) without doing ruinous harm to their own interests. 

I think that's what they're trying to do, but having become so reliant of Russian fuel over the decades it's a bit tricky. Maybe economic interdependence doesn't always offer the best pathway to peaceful relations. 

[steve55]

 

[LongTimeLurker]

Think this guy explains quite well the problems the Russian army have faced because they were told to fight a major war as a special military operation.

[vikingTON]

10 hours ago, welshbairn said:

I think that's what they're trying to do, but having become so reliant of Russian fuel over the decades it's a bit tricky. 

Trying to play direct economic warfare with a primary resource producing country is the most braindead attempt at containment possible:

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/russian-oil-output-jumps-june-china-india-buy-cheap-barrels-2022-6?

Quote

 

Russia has boosted its oil production by roughly 5% in the first half of June compared with last month, Interfax reported Tuesday. 

Average daily oil production, including condensate, hit 1.46 million tonnes through the first 13 days of June, about 68,000 more than the rate in May, per Interfax, according to Reuters. 

After output declined in the initial weeks after the Russia's launched its war on Ukraine, it has been rebounding amid strong demand, especially in Asia, while demand from the West has been down amid self-sanctioning and government bans.

Russian seaborne oil exports jumped 9.5% in the first 13 days of June compared to May, though pipeline supplies dipped 16.5%. 

China and India, in particular, have emerged as top buyers since the war in Ukraine began and demand in the two countries have helped prop up Moscow's energy revenues. Together, the two nations now account for about 50% of Russia's seaborne oil exports. 

 

The West does not have the power to turn off a major producer's economy in a multi-polar world; while Europe is largely replacing one form of external fossil fuel dependency for another (the US) while trashing their own economies and people's livelihoods in the process.

Still though, they can't take away that Eurovision victory! 

[Stellaboz]

What would you do then? 

[vikingTON]

23 minutes ago, Stellaboz said:

What would you do then? 

There's no need to do anything in my view. Ukraine is not covered by any formal defensive alliance or even pre-existing ties of dependency on European, never mind US, power. Having repelled the initial, cack-handed regime change effort, Ukraine should be left with no ambiguity about the reality that a negotiated ceasefire and peace deal is required. Georgia signed a peace deal that clearly ran against their ideal interests in 2008 and that has just about held together. 

Only after a ceasefire is declared and peace settlement discussions are underway should questions of future Western aid and military support for Ukraine be put on the table. 

By slapping broad brush economic sanctions on a country that are failing to deter any form of aggressive behaviour and by drip-feeding arms so that Ukraine's political leaders can endlessly 'try to negotiate from a stronger position' (while steadily losing ground throughout), the West is helping to set up a forever war that is among the worst of all scenarios. 

[LongTimeLurker]

It tends to be countries with vast primary resources that challenge the prevailing international order and hence fall out with the west in a big way, e.g. Libya, Iraq, Venezuela and Iran in recent decades. The issue with Russia is that they have nuclear weapons so having a proxy like Ukraine to put this particular uppity primary resource nation back in its box is the ideal scenario for NATO.

The idea that all that needs to happen is for Ukraine to hand over the Crimea land bridge and Donbas to Russia and everything can reset to normal is myopic in the extreme. What the likes of Macron and Scholz still don't seem to grasp is that they are not dealing with a bland European politician who craves consensus with Putin but a ruthless street thug who sensed weakness after the fiasco in Afghanistan and has a shopping list of demands that goes way beyond Ukraine. If Vlad wins in Ukraine, it's only the beginning of how he wants to reorder the world in geostrategic terms and his end game is unlikely to be any more comfortable for the western consumer than what is unfolding right now.

Beyond that, to minimise the scope for economic havoc, the West needs to come to grips with the Green lobby and all the over the top anti-nuclear and global warming hysteria of recent decades so that options that would reduce dependence on rogue fossil fuel rich actors like Vlad don't get phased out for irrational reasons before genuinely scaleable and economically feasible solutions have been found on energy storage for renewables. If Germany had simply followed France's path on nuclear power in recent decades, for example, the EU would be in much better shape right now. That they won't turn their nuclear plants back on even under the current circusmstances frankly beggars belief.

[Detournement]

1 minute ago, LongTimeLurker said:

It tends to be countries with vast primary resources that challenge the prevailing international order and hence fall out with the west in a big way, e.g. Libya, Iraq, Venezuela and Iran in recent decades. 

'Challenging the prevailing international' order by refusing to let white countries continue to steal all your resources. 

[LongTimeLurker]

All of the countries listed are arguably white countries and Russia definitely is, so why bring race into this in a context where it doesn't really fit?

[Wee-Bey]

'Fall out with the West' is one hell of a euphemism, fair play.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, LongTimeLurker said:

the West needs to come to grips with the Green lobby and all the over the top anti-nuclear and global warming hysteria of recent decades so that options that would reduce dependence on rogue fossil fuel rich actors like Vlad don't get phased out for irrational reasons before genuinely scaleable and economically feasible solutions have been found on energy storage for renewables. If Germany had simply followed France's path on nuclear power in recent decades, for example, the EU would be in much better shape right now. That they won't turn their nuclear plants back on even under the current circusmstances frankly beggars belief.

They (German politicians) always cite Fukushima as causing their change of mind on nuclear power rather than Green lobbying.

[Todd_is_God]

6 minutes ago, FreedomFarter said:

They (German politicians) always cite Fukushima as causing their change of mind on nuclear power rather than Green lobbying.

Germany, of course, being famous for being lashed by Tsunamis...

[vikingTON]

1 hour ago, LongTimeLurker said:

What the likes of Macron and Scholz still don't seem to grasp is that they are not dealing with a bland European politician who craves consensus with Putin but a ruthless street thug who sensed weakness after the fiasco in Afghanistan and has a shopping list of demands that goes way beyond Ukraine. If Vlad wins in Ukraine, it's only the beginning of how he wants to reorder the world in geostrategic terms and his end game is unlikely to be any more comfortable for the western consumer than what is unfolding right now.

Putin can have a shopping list if he wants - the reality remains that he is in charge of a capable but clearly declining power by almost every measurement. Putin's 'grand plan' amounts to at most a restoration of the Kremlin's sphere of dominance to its 1991 boundaries- they can already forget about restoring 1989 or 1945.

While pursuing this, Russia has exposed fundamental weaknesses in its military planning and governance - and has locked itself into a more subservient relationship with China. There will be consequences for that in the future. He has also brought the US and NATO back to the table in committing to its eastern European member states, in a way that would not have happened had Putin waited for the US to complete its pivot towards the Pacific first. This is why the invasion was and remains utter folly - regardless of moralistic claptrap. 

What Western liberals fail to grasp is that managing Russia's overall decline is actually Europe's major geopolitical issue for this century. It is rebounding from the nadir of the Yeltsin years, but it poses zero credible threat to NATO unless its internal political system collapses into anarchy. The current dynamic simply feeds the Kremlin's own narrative for authoritarian rule and allows it to paint the opposition as being stooges of the West. 

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

Germany, of course, being famous for being lashed by Tsunamis...

Merkel announced her decision to suspend nuclear power plant life three days after Fukushima, citing it as the reason. Whether its a crap reason or not, it's the one she gave. The Green Party in Germany are against nuclear power but the're not in government. There's few environmentalists who'd choose fossil fuels over nuclear, anyway. German dependency on Russian gas must be blamed on the politicians and governments who were actually in power and made the decisions.