Navigating the Tensions in Ukraine: A Scientific Perspective

[pinball1970]

Cleanup on aisle 5 completed, and I need to go take a shower. PM me if I missed any of the now-thread-banned member's posts that violate PF rules. Thanks.

Sounds messy.

Anyway this has to be better news. Plans to reduce bombing

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-60890199

 

[DennisN]

Cleanup on aisle 5 completed, and I need to go take a shower. PM me if I missed any of the now-thread-banned member's posts that violate PF rules. Thanks.

Sounds messy.

As the PR representative of @berkeman , I want to clarify a couple of things.

@berkeman was a little carelessly harsh in his previous description of his actions.
He didn't really ban anyone, he performed a "special mentor operation".
And no-one gets banned on PF. They get liberated from the tyranny of the forum rules.
(sorry, I could not resist )

Anyway this has to be better news. Plans to reduce bombing

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-60890199

Sounds good. I'm carefully hopeful.

 

[wrobel]

Ostensibly Mr Putin (granted it's for Russians and only Russians to decide whether he necessarily speaks for them ) said that he was invading Ukraine because of the eastward expansion of NATO. A

Mr Putin went ahead with his plans all the same. Actually his real reasons seemed to be a lot less worthy of the President of the Russian Federation. He claimed he wanted to "de-Nazify"

Mr Putin also claimed that Ukraine was not a country in its own right and was actually a creation of the Soviet Union.

All these nonsense is just a propaganda nothing to speak about. The truth is approximately as follows: For a long time Mr. Putin has been experiencing problems with stability of his power inside the country; particularly he understands that so called majority support is not real but artificial and based on propaganda and repressions; and this majority support can fade in a minute. (If he has such a great support of Russian society then why he increases the police forces all the time?)
A war and an external enemy is an old recipe to consolidate the society around the government. All dictators know it.

 

[geordief]

Well maybe he also calculated that he was bound to be able to consolidate the already "occupied" regions and anything else was a "bonus"

Hard to get into the head of a malevolent bully and apparently self considered master strategist.

True that his support is exaggerated.Pity also the poor Russian public ( and fighting units) that must endure this psychological torture.

 

[artis]

I hope will provide a reasonably balanced picture of the role of NATO in the post Cold War era.

Oh yes I have read this stuff elsewhere and it's a good view if history rather few actually know.
But I also have learned that it's a topic too hot for PF and possibly for other places too. I already angered some people here with it. Our emotions are in a constant battle with our intelligence.
That being said if one honestly asked me for example the question, how would have the policies of the 1990's been done differently to create a better Russia and safer Europe?
Honestly I don't know. It's one thing to promise Russia no NATO expansion but the reality on the ground is that Russia as well as eastern Europe was a mess in the 1990's. Everything from uncontrolled corruption and bribery to political assassinations.
Honestly there was no guarantee that appeasing Russian interests then for the sake of peace would not have resulted in similar outcomes as we see today.

Buffer zones are a real thing like it or not and both US and USSR had them but they only work if world powers can manage the peace between them. (Or more like they have never really worked they only create proxy wars when the locals swing to one political side or the other)
Having no NATO expansion would still run the risk of someone like Putin or worse Zhirinovsky coming to power in Russia and restarting the imperial idea and simply some day taking some independent countries back to their side against their wish.
I believe that governments being complex socioeconomic/military mechanisms are an "emergent property" of a society, the bigger and more complex the society the bigger and more complex is the government.
But different societies do come up with different forms of government that represent the unique properties of that society. I think many in the west naively and falsely have assumed that democracy is a natural "emergent property" for any nation on earth.
I would argue that is not the case. If anything it seems to me that democracy is like a fine microchip, countless parameters have to be closely matched and safeguarded over time both from the state as well as on individual level for it to work. Tyranny and chaos on the other hand are the base mode settings that we all fall back to whenever our highly complex and fragile mechanisms brake down for whatever reasons.
The government equivalent of a computer BSOD.

 

[artis]

A war and an external enemy is an old recipe consolidate the society around the government. All dictators know it.

And if we look at history , bad economic conditions combined with a lost war is basically a "death sentence" for a Russian ruler. Sure the situation is not nearly as bad as it was with Romanov and the WW1 in 1917, and also unlike back then I currently don't see any strong opposition to Putin that could be comparably strong to the Bolsheviks in 1917, but still he is running a fine line between stability and coup.

Unlike in 1917, I think this time there is a higher chance his own security forces and billionaire buddies might turn off the oxygen rather than the "proletariat". But arguably even in 1917 the "proletariat" aka the masses were not all in favor of Lenin.
Unlike Marx naively believed, turned out communism has to be "switched on" by force even in the "perfect conditions" that were met in Russia in 1917. Just another proof for how unnatural Marx's ideology was/is.

 

[wrobel]

Zhirinovsky coming to power in Russia

Zhirinovsky had never been in power in Russia! Since Yeltsin times Zhirinovsky, Zyuganov etc served merely for imitation of democracy and canalization of people's protests. Zhirinovsky, Zyuganov had ever been nice domestic animals for Kremlin they had never been a real apposition.

 

[artis]

Zhirinovsky had never been in power in Russia! Since Yeltsin times Zhirinovsky, Zyuganov etc served merely for imitation of democracy and canalization of people's protests. Zhirinovsky, Zyuganov had ever been nice domestic animals for Kremlin they had never been a real apposition.

I know , that is why I said "if" they had come to power.

 

[russ_watters]

Buffer zones are a real thing like it or not and both US and USSR had them

We did? I think the US and USSR viewed that - and continue to view that differently. We see/saw the countries of Western Europe as their own nations, sovereign in their own right, worthy of protection if they chose to ask us: true sovereign allies or independents. The only buffer to us was a 50m strip of land down the center of Berlin. It's insulting to think of any country as a "buffer country".

The USSR, on the other hand, views its own supposed allies as true cannon-fodder, puppet-state buffers. The precipitating events of this war were the loss of Russian puppet-state status for Ukraine. While Russia claimed before the war to want a truly neutral Ukraine, that wasn't ever Ukraine's status. If Russia had ever treated Ukraine as a sovereign independent (whether that counts as a buffer or not), there's a good chance they would not have reached so strongly toward the west (and even if they did, again; sovereign).

 

[BillTre]

@berkeman was a little carelessly harsh in his previous description of his actions.
He didn't really ban anyone, he performed a "special mentor operation".
And no-one gets banned on PF. They get liberated from the tyranny of the forum rules.
(sorry, I could not resist )

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!

 

[Borg]

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!

AKA a special assimilation operation.

Not to be mistaken for current events on your planet.

 

[artis]

We see/saw the countries of Western Europe as their own nations, sovereign in their own right, worthy of protection if they chose to ask us: true sovereign allies or independents.

Yes I agree western Europe was never occupied by US in the same way east was by USSR. I am not saying both sides treated the concept equally. Definitely US treated Europe as allies, which they were also in the war, apart from Germany that is.
On the other hand[off topic content deleted]

The USSR, on the other hand, views its own supposed allies as true cannon-fodder, puppet-state buffers. The precipitating events of this war were the loss of Russian puppet-state status for Ukraine. While Russia claimed before the war to want a truly neutral Ukraine, that wasn't ever Ukraine's status. If Russia had ever treated Ukraine as a sovereign independent (whether that counts as a buffer or not), there's a good chance they would not have reached so strongly toward the west (and even if they did, again; sovereign).

And again I am not arguing one side is better or not. I am well aware maybe even more so than you about the harsh realities people faced here. I was not trying to imply a certain policy is good or bad, just pointing out certain facts of how politics have been done in the past. I understand this can get upsetting to some if I omit all the details one would like to hear after such a statement. Sorry if I wasn't as precise as you would have wished.

Mr Putin also claimed that Ukraine was not a country in its own right and was actually a creation of the Soviet Union.

Yes he tends to do that, but if we apply this logic then no country in Europe should exist as is because they all have previously been part of some older now extinct empire.

 

[DennisN]

Yes he tends to do that, but if we apply this logic then no country in Europe should exist as is because they all have previously been part of some older now extinct empire.

+1 on that.

Some interesting history (I post this not as a discussion starter, but to make a point of what artis said above):

The medieval federation called Kievan Rus encompassed much of the European part of Russia at present.

About Kiev and Kievan Rus':

From Oleg's seizure of the city until 1169, Kiev functioned as the capital of Kievan Rus', which was ruled by the Varangian Rurikid dynasty which gradually became Slavicized. (note my bolding in the quote)

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Kyiv#Kievan_Rus'_to_the_Mongol_invasion

Now, who where the Varangians? Well, let's see...

The Varangians, was the name given by Eastern Romans to Vikings, mostly Swedes. Between the 9th and 11th centuries, Varangians ruled the medieval state of Kievan Rus', settled among many territories of modern Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, and formed the Byzantine Varangian Guard which later also included Anglo-Saxons. (my bolding)

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varangians

(by the way, the Varangian Guard is a pretty interesting military unit in military history, I think)

And:

According to the Hustyn Chronicle, Askold and Dir (Haskuldr and Dyri) ruled the Rus' Khaganate at least in 842. They were Varangian princes, probably of Swedish origin, but not Rurikids. According to the Annals of St. Bertin (Annales Bertiniani) for the year 839, Louis the Pious, the Holy Roman Emperor, came to the conclusion that the people called Rhos (qui se, id est gentem suum, Rhos vocari dicebant) belonged to the gens of the Swedes (eos gentis esse Sueonum). (my bolding)

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Kyiv#Kievan_Rus'_to_the_Mongol_invasion

So, I as a Swede could say I have a historical connection to Kievan Rus and Kiev/Kyiv (the capital of present Ukraine). But I don't desire to reclaim that land.

 

[BillTre]

Things like this are why Putin will not win in Ukraine:

They will never have a big enough army to deal with 44M pissed off Ukrainians.

 

[CarlB]

If you type "C. A. Brannen" into a search at Amazon books you'll find a series my family published on military history. My favorite is: "Gunning for the Red Baron, C. A. Brannen No. 7:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/158544507X/?tag=pfamazon01-20

So I suppose I should contribute to this thread.

Wars are basically diplomatic disagreements that have gotten a bit out of control. The general idea is that someone is doing something you don't like and to get them to stop, you arrange for bad things to happen to them. They have similar feelings and respond with even worse things. From a physics point of view, this is called "positive feedback". Now it's important to remember that there are standard ways that civilized people do these things. For example, their side "kills babies", our side "causes collateral damage".

The first thing to note is that it's always the other side that caused the conflict. Somewhat illogically, this applies to both sides! Anything our side is doing is simply a consequence of things that the other side did first. It's like when you ask children who started a fight, they will agree that the other did. And there is typically some truth to this; it takes two to fight one way or another. (Oh so sorry, I didn't want to get in the way of your supreme righteousness in picking sides, LOL.)

The best "bad things" that you can do to another country are killing their babies. So EVERY war begins with the two sides accusing each other of baby killing. When I see pictures of broken babies I burst into laughter because this is such predictable human behavior. Now when you're impressing your own side on the truth and righteousness it's important that they be unaware of the other side's version of reality. You do this by spreading your version of reality as widely as possible while suppressing the words of the others. As I write this I am on the western side so I am inundated by the expected western version and must use some effort to find the tiny cracks where the other side's versions are described (I say described as it is in a foreign language I do not know).

It's easy to get the population to hate the subhuman enemy baby killers but there is always some fear that attacking the enemy will cause them to come over here and kill our own babies. This is very important when we're talking about border wars in Europe. Europe has been having border wars for 5000 years. The only time they turn into big deals is when countries which shouldn't be involved decide that they absolutely, positively, must get involved in their own part of the baby killing. This can only be accomplished by the two propaganda objectives; the enemy are subhuman baby killers, and defeating them militarily will be easy. So these are the two themes of propaganda that you can expect the two sides to lie about the most. Don't trust any of it.

Wars end when one side decides that they are beaten and need to surrender. This is very very difficult because all the propaganda about the other side being baby killers has been reinforced by the attacks on their own neighbors which has ruthlessly killed lots of babies right in front of their own eyes. You would think that this is impossible and that countries would fight to the last man but it turns out that after enough babies are dead, it starts to occur to the survivors that it's only a matter of time before the war kills them too and that surrendering to subhuman baby killers might be terrible, but the war continuing is even worse. This can take a long time. On the scale of typical European group wars, WW1 and WW2 were very very short because they were very one-sided. Compare industrial production to see this.

Now you might believe that we've advanced since WW2 and we no longer think of fire bombing as a good way of changing hearts and minds and in this I need to point out the distinguishing difference between small wars (like European border wars; before, hopefully, this one, think of the Franco-Prussian War, for example) and world-wide wars between global superpowers (like the Napoleonic Wars or WW1). For small wars, international diplomacy is important and if it's obvious that you're targeting babies (ooops, I forgot, when we kill babies the correct term is "collaterally damaging babies") they will tend to support your enemy. Since external support is extremely important to small countries they sometimes obey Geneva Convention. (So after video appeared of Ukrainians shooting Russian POWs in the knees the Ukrainian government put out a video announcing their support of the Geneva Convention for a good reason.) But with superpowers fighting superpowers there is no such reason to support the Geneva Convention; instead they target the enemy civilian population directly and with great enthusiasm. The reason nuclear weapons are so desirable is that they provide a way of attacking enemy civilians that the enemy military cannot protect against.

If you want to read a US military paper on the targeting of civilians and why it works you can start here, but in reading this, you must understand that targeting civilians is forbidden by law in the US; so the document must work within that restriction:
"Just War Theory and Democratization by Force", (2012) Military Review:
https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Por...es/English/MilitaryReview_20121031_art004.pdf

With most countries you win a war when you capture their capital city. Sometimes they will give up even before this. But it turns out that in the Napoleonic wars the US and Russia both had their capital cities captured and burned (1814 and 1812), by opposite sides on the Napoleonic wars but neither country quit fighting. This is something that AH would have discovered if he'd managed to capture Moscow in say 1942. In fact, AH managed to kill over 20 million Russians but they just kept fighting and eventually conquered Berlin. Of the major countries around the world, the only ones I can think of that have never been conquered (and are older than a few hundred years) are the US, UK and Russia. Maybe this contributes to why these countries start so many wars. Anyway, the Russian losses in WW2 give you a start at estimating how many Russians you will have to kill before they decide to quit fighting. Note it's much easier to get even world powers to quit a fight that is not on their home territory and the US, UK and Russia have all been tossed out of Afghanistan. The method is basically to do guerilla fighting and be patient. But where countries defend their "home" territory it is not so easy. And face it or not, fact or fiction, the Russians consider parts of Ukraine as home territory where Russian has been the majority language for a thousand years. Getting them to give it up won't be easy, don't fool yourself like AH did.

One of the odd features of countries is the large difference in murder rates between the old world and the new. I suspect this may have something to do with the number of people you have to kill in order to get a surrender so I'm mentioning it here. Everyone knows that the US is a violent country in terms of murder rate but it isn't so much appreciated that the high murder rates apply to most of the countries in North and South America. And of all the world's wars, probably the worst in terms of "just what percentage of the population do you have to kill in order to get the survivors to surrender" was demonstrated by Paraguay in the 1860s when despite being seriously outnumbered, they solved a border dispute by simultaneously attacking three neighbors. They didn't surrender until about 70% of their adult male population was dead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguayan_War_casualties

If this war spreads beyond Ukraine the two sides will target each others' infrastructure as it is needed to make more weapons. This is due to the under appreciated fact that modern war chews up weapons systems at an amazing rate. The US logistics train assumes that 1% of weapons will be destroyed per day when things are quiet but that losses will far exceed that during active times. What this means is that even though the sides have been stockpiling huge amounts of weapons those piles will quickly be used up and the troops (likely on both sides) will be reduced to using assault rifles and the occasional grenade. Various countries are already out of missiles just by sending stocks to Ukraine. Great time to buy defense stocks, but how are you going to spend your profits? The economic consequences are that global (conventional) wars will quickly turn into meat grinders like WW1; the most important thing will be getting troops to the front. I'm reminded of my calculus teacher in high school in Albuquerque. Juan Raigoza had been a Colonel in the artillery and served in Korea. I took the class just after the end of the Vietnam war. The rumor among the students was that if you acted inappropriately in his class he would make a call to the "Selective Service" and you would be drafted two weeks after you graduated. From there the US army gave you "basic training" which at the time was very brief so that another 2 weeks and you were holding an M-16 in the jungles of Vietnam.

Now the west has already targeted Russian infrastructure (and civilians) in their attempt at destroying the ruble. As is normal for propaganda, the media trumpeted the plan to "destroy the value of the ruble" and went on at length about how it was cratering. And then, somehow, they quit talking about the ruble. If you want to know the explanation for why you stopped hearing about Russia's problems with the value of the ruble you can go look for a recent chart of the value of the ruble/dollar, for example this one:

https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=RUB&to=USD&view=1Y

That's right. As of today, the effort at destroying the value of the ruble failed almost completely and the media didn't bother to tell you about it. You should consider this as pretty good evidence that you are on the receiving end of an excellent, well executed propaganda war for a losing war. Simply put, everything you hear is either a complete fabrication or has been skillfully chosen to support a narrative that is not at all an accurate description of reality. And the reason this fact is VERY important for a wider war is that war is extremely expensive. The reason the US has huge military power is that even huger amounts of money has been spent on it. And that money did not come from US taxpayers. It's from constant budget deficits we've been running by borrowing money from foreigners. Those foreigners loaned us the money because their economies have been growing and they need larger and larger "reserves" of foreign currency. The US dollar has been preferred because it is trusted but the brilliant planners we've elected have likely permanently undermined that trust by stealing Russia's US dollar deposits. This is literally a bank telling you that your money has been taken from you and it cannot possibly make it easier to fund US military operations in a war that the world cannot rationally conclude we will easily win (and be able to pay back those loans). In addition, the Covid induced growth in the money supply is causing inflation which will vastly increase government interest expenditures over the next few years. Together these are not good omens for the economics of fighting a war. By the way, the best book on the economics of war I've ever read is the instant classic "Wages of Destruction, The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy" which I highly recommend even though my family didn't publish it:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143113208/?tag=pfamazon01-20

I should do one more thing and that is to describe what a conventional war expanding beyond Ukraine would involve. First, note that is an undeniable fact that the west has taken the war to be against Russian civilians so far only economically. Well this is not 1938. You know, I see a lot of people talking about some eventual civil war in the US. Fact is that the long horrible civil wars of the past all involved either foreign intervention (Vietnam for instance) or were in countries that were mostly rural (Spanish Civil war for instance). Civil wars in industrialized countries are very short (example: Austrian Civil war, February 12-16, 1934) and the reason is very simple. Rural people can feed themselves, urban people cannot. For similar reasons, I expect that a major war in Europe will be a lot shorter than expected, even without the use of nuclear weapons.

The first place I would target (and trust me, I know these things well) would be the large power transformers that are necessary to move electricity around. They can be easily destroyed by the hypersonic missiles Russia possesses and by US cruise missiles. These can be carried by submarines and simply cannot be avoided. Replacing one of these LPTs can take a few years as they are made by a rather small number of places (which I would also, of course, target with missiles). The result would be that most places in the free world would have no electricity for a very long time. Without electricity it will be difficult to refrigerate meats and undoubtedly there would be mass starvation from the breakdown in transportation. It might be a good time to stock up on spices that go well with human flesh as one of the best selling fast foods could be "People Jerky (tm)". Let's see if I can dig up an article on LPTs...:
https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/Large Power Transformer Study - June 2012_0.pdf

 

[bob012345]

Tings like this are why Putin will not win in Ukraine:
View attachment 299101
They will never have a big enough army to deal with 44M pissed off Ukrainians.

I assume this photo was staged because they don't need children in this fight and have sent millions out of the country. Zelenskyy has mobilized all males from 18 to 60 as a pool of potential fighters and all they need are the resources to fight. But women too are in the fight;

https://www.firstpost.com/world/int...-stay-invisible-in-the-military-10440241.html

 

[Oldman too]

My favorite is: "Gunning for the Red Baron, C. A. Brannen No. 7:

That, I find interesting, along with the rest of your post. Are you familiar with the book Canvas Falcons?

 

[russ_watters]

Yes I agree western Europe was never occupied by US in the same way east was by USSR. I am not saying both sides treated the concept equally. Definitely US treated Europe as allies, which they were also in the war, apart from Germany that is.
On the other hand[off topic content deleted]

You should have stopped there. You were correct in agreeing that the US and USSR treated the concept/their allies differently. The rest is just an off-topic attempt at whataboutism, for actions that don't have anything to do with what we're discussing (and I deleted it to prevent others from replying/further derailing).

Yes he tends to do that, but if we apply this logic then no country in Europe should exist as is because they all have previously been part of some older now extinct empire.

Who is we? The only one applying that logic is Putin. Keep your eye on the ball!

 

[russ_watters]

The first thing to note is that it's always the other side that caused the conflict. Somewhat illogically, this applies to both sides! Anything our side is doing is simply a consequence of things that the other side did first. It's like when you ask children who started a fight, they will agree that the other did. And there is typically some truth to this; it takes two to fight one way or another. (Oh so sorry, I didn't want to get in the way of your supreme righteousness in picking sides, LOL.)

I don't believe that anybody actually believes that to be universally true. Maybe that's a *wink*, but just to be clear: aggressors know they are aggressors even if they claim not to be. And again, to keep our eye on the ball: Putin knows he's the aggressor here.

 

[Borg]

Something a little happier.

The Romanian Bridge of Toys

 

[artis]

You should have stopped there.

According to your opinion that is, because that was as far as I agreed with you.
It is somewhat interesting how you say "I am correct" if I agree with your assessment and then the part that doesn't agree with your perceived view of your homeland simply is "whataboutism" and wrong.

 

[artis]

(So after video appeared of Ukrainians shooting Russian POWs in the knees the Ukrainian government put out a video announcing their support of the Geneva Convention for a good reason.)

Yes I saw that video literally the moment it came out, but here is the deal, it seems to have been fabricated. Not to say Ukrainians haven't beaten the holy crap out of some Russian soldiers (which is understandable in their situation truth be told), This war is full of information warfare from both sides, so one must be careful.
Here is a rather decent reddit thread about the video and how it appears to be faked.

 

[artis]

Well it seems Russia is changing it's tactics in Ukraine. Not sure how the yesterday's peace talks will end up but yesterday Defense minister Shoigu gave an address to the Russian army staff and pretty much said that , to paraphrase " 1st part of the operation has concluded" then went on to say and count how many weapons Russia has destroyed on Ukrainian side etc.
Reading between the lines it seems Kremlin might be preparing for some peace agreement that would likely include taking Crimea and Donbas and asking Ukraine to forget NATO, possibly some other stuff I'm not aware of at the moment.
Here is the video for those who are interested , English captions are available.


I also read reports that it seems Russia is pulling back it's positions from Kyiv and seemingly strengthening their eastern front which would explain Shoigu's claims in the video.

But for those that think that Russian people want nothing more than to end Ukraine bloodshed, well I will disappoint you. From what I read in the comments and elsewhere it seems to me one large portion of Russia is now angry at Putin but not for the reasons you might think. They are angry that he is pulling out before finishing the job as he promised. They say that what's the point of enduring sanctions if Russia cannot live up to it's military expectations.
Others compare this to the Russian- Japanese war back in 1904.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_WarSome others point out rather wisely that "giving in" without full victory over Ukraine will only result in a decreased Russian standing without any real benefit. They say sanctions are unlikely to get lifted even if they stop the war.
In general the commentators are mad not because of the war as such but because the sense that Putin cannot keep his promises and now they have to endure sanctions for no real reason.

Also I think it is wise to assume that even Putin's resignation from office or his removal at this point is not a 100% guarantee that the next leader (most likely chosen by some of the same people who supported Putin) will be a "democratic" leader of Russia and will reverse their course 180 degrees.
In fact if this war will turn out to be a huge blunder and loss it is highly probable that Russians will be in a similar state as Germans were after WW1 and leaders that are even more blood thirsty than Putin will be able to prevail in the long term.
I don't expect there to be any increase in sympathy for Ukraine or west in general from now on, as I think the portion of Russia that has already decided whom they like is pretty much visible now, and I can't say it's the majority of Russians.I myself would say that there are already two visible mistakes in this war. First mistake was made by Putin to think that Ukraine would "bend over" for him, the second mistake is from the west in thinking that economic sanctions will "unite Russians" against their government. So far I see very little of this and clearly not enough to cause real change.
The sanctions I believe were necessary but it seems they might have the opposite effect in the long term and that is to cause even more hate towards the west from those Russians who view this war as necessary. This in turn can play out as a vote for an even tougher man than Putin which will lead to more future wars.

 

[artis]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-ru...neered-the-rubles-rebound-11648458200?mod=mhp

This is a really good article and video. It's not even one sided. I would have to agree to the experts in the video that said that these sanctions might backfire. Backfire in the sense that ordinary Russians who were not largely in either camp (whether the pro war or anti war) will now be angry (as we all would be) for losing their life's hard work.
And it's debatable how accountable individuals are on a personal level for the policies of their government if they have close to 0 ability to influence the government as is the reality in Russia.
You would need an absolute majority to act swiftly and decisively in order to have a coup in Russia.
That momentum is simply not there, so these sanctions might just create a good ground for an even more imperialistic future Russia.Ok, apart from what others have said and the news, my own personal opinion is that, the sanctions even if they backfire were needed, at least in the short term, because the other options were to either
A) Do nothing (as in 2014)
B) Start a war with Russia (easily the worst option of all of them)

The supply of weapons to Ukraine so far seems to have worked. I think that despite Zelensky's understandable frustration the choice to not send the jet aircraft and create the "no fly zone" so far has been a success at not creating escalation while still giving enough help to keep the Russian troops under constant pressure.
I think we will be able to assess the real benefit (or the lack thereof) of current policies when we will see a clear turn in this war either for the better or worse.

 

[Oldman too]

From what I read in the comments and elsewhere it seems to me one large portion of Russia is now angry at Putin but not for the reasons you might think.

Do you have a source for "unfiltered comments, video etc. ? If the comments are coming out of Russia I'd consider the majority are fluff and disinformation. All players practice this but in the case of information spin, Putin's got it locked down in Russia.

 

[Rive]

Russians will be in a similar state as Germans were after WW1

In my book that has happened after the collapse of the CCCP and this one now is already the part about storming France Ukraine.

At some point Russia needs to face the fact that they are not the 'other side' of the world anymore. The economy they have was around the tenth, and next year it'll be around fifteenth of the word, and most of that is not about actual production. They cannot afford to play big. The only thing they have for that is history and nukes.
Not near enough.

 

[artis]

Do you have a source for "unfiltered comments, video etc. ? If the comments are coming out of Russia I'd consider the majority are fluff and disinformation. All players practice this but in the case of information spin, Putin's got it locked down in Russia.

Do 100 sources count?
Rest assured I am well aware of Russia's disinformation online, but given my physical location I have multiple avenues of understanding what is going on. First is speaking to people I know in real life, second is reading various different blogs and articles , then there is the official CNN, BBC, etc and then you compare that to what is really happening. At least I do. Oh and yes also reading and listening to Russian channels, you know sometimes reading between the lines tells more than reading a "tell all" summary.

Russian newspaper "gazeta.ru" for example published a article that says that the semi truck factory "Kamaz" will once more manufacture some of their older style trucks with Euro2 emissions diesels. What does that tell me? Simple. They ran out of engine control units aka computers for their newer engines and now resort back to mechanical high pressure pumps... sanctions.I doubt the Kremlin trolls are now trying to create a conspiracy that Russians hate Putin for not going "all in" till the end. Given the current sanctions and Kremlin's setbacks and lies in general I think many are truly frustrated in Russia. What worries me a bit is that I'm not sure they are frustrated towards the right goal...
I myself don't believe that there exists a large silent majority in Russia that is ready to change their course at the first chance they get. Putin has been doing his "thing" for 22 years now, majority just went along. If they were so pissed off about him then this war should have been the "straw that broke the camels back" but it doesn't seem to be like that

 

[PeroK]

@CarlB I suggest you take a plane to Moscow and express your theory there and see what happens. It's hardly credible that a sane human being could equate the actions of Russia and Ukraine in this conflict. Where are your bombed out Russian cities?

It doesn't take two sides to start a war anymore than everyone who has ever been murdered is equally to blame as their murderer.

 

[artis]

In my book that has happened after the collapse of the CCCP and this one now is already the part about storming France Ukraine.

At some point Russia needs to face the fact that they are not the 'other side' of the world anymore. The economy they have was around the tenth, and next year it'll be around fifteenth of the word, and most of that is not about actual production. They cannot afford to play big. The only thing they have for that is history and nukes.
Not near enough.

I agree with your assessment,

I don't believe that history repeats itself directly as 1:1, I do believe that the general trends repeat themselves , like empires falling and then going through a transformation and then trying to be born again.

For me it is not clear cut that the only way for Russia forward is to thrown away it's imperial ambitions and play along the west and the rest. I think there is a scenario where Russia can still hold on to their imperialism and build up their strength with time even in the face of western embargo's and sanctions.
I believe a lot of that will have to do with China and how that relationship goes and also on how the west itself will stand up to the test of time both abroad and domestically.
In other words I just wanted to say that their lack of economy is not a clear sign of them "giving up" from now on.
The Soviets also had a far weaker economy (and idiotic economic policies) than US and Europe and yet they were able to play along for decades.
Anyway I think we here will be on the edge for quite a while because nobody I know has a good guess on which way Russian affairs will turn in the coming months let alone years.

 

[Rive]

it is not clear cut that the only way for Russia forward is to thrown away it's imperial ambitions and play along the west and the rest.

While Russia is not a world power anymore, they are still passable as a continental level power and in such role they are actually necessary. Without Russia half dozen wars would erupt in Asia and it could develop into a free-for-all (including grabbing nukes) very easily. No one would want to see such a mess.

One of my concern with the actual events is, that with Russia weakened those wars might erupt en masse.

 

[artis]

One of my concern with the actual events is, that with Russia weakened those wars might erupt en masse.

Well I'm more worried that this Ukraine conflict even if resolved could lead to renewed conflicts within the middle east.
I mean anything can lead to a conflict in the middle east it's such a volatile place, but even more so if the world order gets destabilized.

 

[neilparker62]

Well maybe he also calculated that he was bound to be able to consolidate the already "occupied" regions and anything else was a "bonus"

Hard to get into the head of a malevolent bully and apparently self considered master strategist.

True that his support is exaggerated.Pity also the poor Russian public ( and fighting units) that must endure this psychological torture.

Yes - when you're being sent to the frontline you'd want to be sure of both the integrity of your CIC and that his military advisors know what they're doing. It should be mandatory for the CIC to be present when slain servicemen are brought home - it might concentrate the mind somewhat.

 

[pinball1970]

We did? I think the US and USSR viewed that - and continue to view that differently. We see/saw the countries of Western Europe as their own nations, sovereign in their own right, worthy of protection if they chose to ask us: true sovereign allies or independents.

Agreed anyone equating USSR/Warsaw pact countries with USA western allies has obviously never spoken to anyone from East Germany, Hungary, Cech republic etc

 

[russ_watters]

...and then the part that doesn't agree with your perceived view of your homeland simply is "whataboutism" and wrong.

I didn't say it was wrong or even that i disagree, I said it was off topic. For the record I agree that the US did some questionable/bad military engagements during the Cold War. But that has nothing to do with the subject of the thread.

 

[anorlunda]

I saw an accusation that Americans and Europeans are being racist because their outrage comes only when the victims are white. Ouch. That stung because is sounds at least partially true.

Here is a reminder to everyone in this thread that Ukrainians are not the only ones under attack or imminent attack, or genocide.

Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen​

https://www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/saudi-arabias-war-in-yemen

Concentration Camps in Today’s China: What We Know About Uighurs’ Repression​

https://www.voanews.com/a/concentra...we-know-about-uighurs-repression/6462957.html

​

Taiwan’s leader to emulate Zelensky in case of China conflict​

https://news.google.com/articles/CA...Aow-4fWBzD4z0gwwtp6?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en

U.S. to Declare Atrocities Committed Against Rohingya Amount to ‘Genocide’​

https://www.thedailybeast.com/biden...rity-by-myanmar-military-constitutes-genocide

Targeted for genocide in Afghanistan: The Hazaras​

https://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2021/09/targeted-for-genocide-in-afghanistan-the-hazaras/

Kagame the winner as Macron gives genocide speech in Rwanda​

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ner-as-macron-gives-genocide-speech-in-rwanda

Iran bombed Iraq’s Kurdish region over natural gas plan involving Israel​

https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-...ver-natural-gas-plan-involving-israel-report/

Zelensky: Don't forget Ukrainian Jewish role in the dispossession of Palestine​

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-zelensky-ukrainian-jewish-role-dispossession

I'm sure this list is not complete.