I think it is probably a bit more complicated than that.Gadianton wrote: ↑Sun Apr 10, 2022 2:56 pmEither way, his strength is his nukes, and that's the bottom line. His army is irrelevant. He's strong enough to take what the West will give him under the threat of nuclear attack. He's never needed to send out a single troop to do anything. All he had to do was issue an announcement to hand over Ukraine, and if it's not done by next Friday, here are the countries that will receive tactical nukes, and if there are any nuclear retaliations or conventional incursions on Russian soil, then he'll release all of them and level the United States.
Sending out troops is just going through the motions, maybe it's needed to psychologically prepare himself and his crew to play the one and only hand they've ever had.
There are two rules:
1) if he loses; nukes.
2) if he wins; take more.
Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Mayan Elephant:
Not only have I denounced the Big Lie, I have denounced the Big lie big lie.
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Mayan Elephant:
Not only have I denounced the Big Lie, I have denounced the Big lie big lie.
Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine
I think that he wants to restore Imperialist Russia, defeat Europe, and then defeat America. He doesn't have enough personal time to get very far at all in that objective. If you believe people like Zeihan (they geo-pol guy Gunner linked to who is a Bush-era libertarian) Russia will implode economically before it will reach any substantial goals. On that view, what we do or don't do in Ukraine doesn't really matter, as Russia's end is inevitable.Geez, this is depressing. Do you think Putin would stop if he retook all the northern slavic countries. I don't think he wants global communism the way his leaders wanted, for the simple reason that he's not a communist.
He's not communist, but that's an interesting debate on what's more essential to Russia as the great world power, communism per say, or authoritarianism? Historic nationalism, Statism and his old-school ties to the KGB are probably what's more essential to a Russian empire than communism per se, in his view. Well, 19th century Russia pre-dates communism anyway.
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honorentheos
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Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine
https://www.cfr.org/event/foreign-affai ... -joe-biden
CARPENTER: So I think Russia has three principal goals. One is to weaken Western democracies internally. Another one, as the vice president said, is to divide the countries of NATO and the EU internally, to deal individually with those nations, as opposed to with a united front. And then third is to undermine the rules-based international order, which, from Moscow’s perspective, is slanted in favor of the United States because it promotes norms of democracy, because it promotes certain other norms in the international sphere—territorial integrity, sovereignty—that Russia sometimes feels it can transgress when it wants to.
And so what Russia has essentially done is it’s taken the fight from what was originally just contained to the post-Soviet space and taken that fight now to Europe, to the United States, by subverting our institutions internally, by using sometimes hard power, but more often corruption, energy, information, and cyber to be able to undermine these democratic institutions, as I said, internally.
HAASS: However one might describe U.S.-Russian ties, they are not good. And looking backwards over the last quarter of a century, in some ways it’s anticipating what history will grapple with. Was this inevitable? Was there something about the nature of America, America’s definition of what world order consisted of, something about Russian political culture that essentially—despite the optimism 25 years ago when President Bush 41, my boss at the time, talked about a new world order—was it inevitable? Or to some extent, does Western policy bear some of the responsibility for the current state of affairs? Obviously higher on the list of certain people would be NATO enlargement. Did we have to get to where we are, or could it have been avoided?
BIDEN: I think it’s hard to say if it could have been avoided, but it’s more easily able to identify why it didn’t happen. And it wasn’t, in my view, because of the expansion of NATO. As you may remember, that was my primary responsibility on the floor of the Senate with Michael Haltzel. And the only time I had a real serious and elongated disagreement and debate with Pat Moynihan was on the expansion of NATO. And his argument was, to vastly oversimplify it—it was much more articulate than I’m about to state—but was that this is not the time to worry the new leadership in Russia that they’re about to be surrounded and overtaken, et cetera.
I don’t see—I ask the reverse question all the time, is what happens if we didn’t have NATO. Does anybody think if NATO did not exist, the expansion of NATO did not occur, and somehow the fact that a KGB thug ended up in control of that country would have been altered? I don’t any evidence that suggests that would be the case. Matter of fact, I would argue that you would very much likely see more use of military power and force. And one of the things we talked about, and I’ll not go any further, is that as all these Eastern and Central European countries were, quote, “freed,” they all had their own agenda, their own historical fears, their own concerns. And they’re all engaging independently in activities and actions that could have been very destabilizing—destabilizing to the whole region.
And so part of what we did was to stabilize and give some assurance to each of those countries that they should yield toward what would be more considered to be basic democratic instincts and policies, than to go the route some of them were considering going. And so I don’t think—I don’t think that the expansion of NATO, history will—it will be a debate that will continue—was the reason why the instability to the extent that it—that it was inevitable that Russia would take the role that it took. But I do think there were a number of things, when you think about it, as you’ve written about—and many of you have—there is—
HAASS: You’re not going to mention the name of the book? (Laughter.)
BIDEN: You just made me forget the name of the book right then. (Laughter.) But it’s a very good book. I strongly urge you to buy—urge you to buy two copies. (Laughter.)
But think about it. I mean, look at all the countries in the world, including in this hemisphere, that are coming out from under what has essentially been somewhere either decades if not an entire history of corruption and dictatorships or oligarchs running those countries. And it’s really—and I’ve spent a lot of time. I mean, I’ve spent more time I would—I know I spent more time than any member of our administration trying to deal with making sure that this revolution of dignity did not blow up in the face of what is a great opportunity for Ukraine. But the corruption is so endemic and so deep and so consequential it’s really, really, really, really hard to get it out of the system. So I think there were some—you know, there was at least 100 years of history and beyond in Russia that made it difficult to actually set up these institutions in the first instance.
CARPENTER: So I think Russia has three principal goals. One is to weaken Western democracies internally. Another one, as the vice president said, is to divide the countries of NATO and the EU internally, to deal individually with those nations, as opposed to with a united front. And then third is to undermine the rules-based international order, which, from Moscow’s perspective, is slanted in favor of the United States because it promotes norms of democracy, because it promotes certain other norms in the international sphere—territorial integrity, sovereignty—that Russia sometimes feels it can transgress when it wants to.
And so what Russia has essentially done is it’s taken the fight from what was originally just contained to the post-Soviet space and taken that fight now to Europe, to the United States, by subverting our institutions internally, by using sometimes hard power, but more often corruption, energy, information, and cyber to be able to undermine these democratic institutions, as I said, internally.
HAASS: However one might describe U.S.-Russian ties, they are not good. And looking backwards over the last quarter of a century, in some ways it’s anticipating what history will grapple with. Was this inevitable? Was there something about the nature of America, America’s definition of what world order consisted of, something about Russian political culture that essentially—despite the optimism 25 years ago when President Bush 41, my boss at the time, talked about a new world order—was it inevitable? Or to some extent, does Western policy bear some of the responsibility for the current state of affairs? Obviously higher on the list of certain people would be NATO enlargement. Did we have to get to where we are, or could it have been avoided?
BIDEN: I think it’s hard to say if it could have been avoided, but it’s more easily able to identify why it didn’t happen. And it wasn’t, in my view, because of the expansion of NATO. As you may remember, that was my primary responsibility on the floor of the Senate with Michael Haltzel. And the only time I had a real serious and elongated disagreement and debate with Pat Moynihan was on the expansion of NATO. And his argument was, to vastly oversimplify it—it was much more articulate than I’m about to state—but was that this is not the time to worry the new leadership in Russia that they’re about to be surrounded and overtaken, et cetera.
I don’t see—I ask the reverse question all the time, is what happens if we didn’t have NATO. Does anybody think if NATO did not exist, the expansion of NATO did not occur, and somehow the fact that a KGB thug ended up in control of that country would have been altered? I don’t any evidence that suggests that would be the case. Matter of fact, I would argue that you would very much likely see more use of military power and force. And one of the things we talked about, and I’ll not go any further, is that as all these Eastern and Central European countries were, quote, “freed,” they all had their own agenda, their own historical fears, their own concerns. And they’re all engaging independently in activities and actions that could have been very destabilizing—destabilizing to the whole region.
And so part of what we did was to stabilize and give some assurance to each of those countries that they should yield toward what would be more considered to be basic democratic instincts and policies, than to go the route some of them were considering going. And so I don’t think—I don’t think that the expansion of NATO, history will—it will be a debate that will continue—was the reason why the instability to the extent that it—that it was inevitable that Russia would take the role that it took. But I do think there were a number of things, when you think about it, as you’ve written about—and many of you have—there is—
HAASS: You’re not going to mention the name of the book? (Laughter.)
BIDEN: You just made me forget the name of the book right then. (Laughter.) But it’s a very good book. I strongly urge you to buy—urge you to buy two copies. (Laughter.)
But think about it. I mean, look at all the countries in the world, including in this hemisphere, that are coming out from under what has essentially been somewhere either decades if not an entire history of corruption and dictatorships or oligarchs running those countries. And it’s really—and I’ve spent a lot of time. I mean, I’ve spent more time I would—I know I spent more time than any member of our administration trying to deal with making sure that this revolution of dignity did not blow up in the face of what is a great opportunity for Ukraine. But the corruption is so endemic and so deep and so consequential it’s really, really, really, really hard to get it out of the system. So I think there were some—you know, there was at least 100 years of history and beyond in Russia that made it difficult to actually set up these institutions in the first instance.
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honorentheos
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Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Cont. -
BIDEN: But I don’t think we can give up on the possibility. I don’t think we can give up on the possibility. I don’t think we should be naïve about it. I think we have to do a number of things in the meantime to make it clear to Russia that they are going to pay a price for many of the things they have done, in addition to making sure that we just, in effect, advertise to the Russian population and to all of Western Europe what they’re actually doing.
I mean, here we are, we’re talking about Russian interference in the United States, whether there was collusion between the Trump administration and Russia. That’s obscured a much larger discussion that should be taking place about whether or not what Russia is doing in the rest of the world right now and what Russia is doing in Europe right now. And part of it is just pulling the—pulling the Band-Aid off.
And for example, we recommend in here an international commission. Immediately, we got response from a number—I got response from a number of European leaders wanting to set up an international commission, an independent commission made up of all parties, the mainstream parties in Europe, to actually spend time and do what we haven’t done here, look at what Russia is doing in Europe right now that their publics do not know. Because when they do know it, their influence diminishes precipitously, like it did in France in this election, like it has in—but part of this is that there is not much discussion. And our leadership has been abdicated.
Your point is there’s three ways you lose power. One is just, you know, abdicate. Well, that’s what we’re doing. And part of it is just going out and telling—it sounds almost sophomoric—tell the truth, lay out what’s happening out there and get the international community to join in in terms of providing the hard data after some serious looks as to what is going on.
And the second thing is, if you’re sitting here—and when my grandchildren are writing their senior thesis to some great university about what happened to Russia, in 2018 what was the consensus in America about what Russia was going to look like in 2030? Well, you know, I wouldn’t want to have to be in a position—I often say to classes I teach, I would not want to be in a position, no matter what approach I took, of having to lead Russia. Look at—look at the state of Russia now. They’re in enormous decline. They’re—by any definition, these guys are on a toboggan run. The question is when the run ends. You know, they have a second-rate military power. They have significant advantages geographically, where they’re engaged. They have a nuclear arsenal that is—can blow up the whole world. But in terms of their efficacy, their capacity is de minimis compared to ours. They’re in a situation where they’re an oil-based economy. You have Gazprom going from a market value of something like $350 billion to $50 billion in the last 10 years.
What do you do if you are a democratic leader of Russia? What do you do? How do you provide jobs for your people? Where do you go? How do you build that country, unless you engage the West? I don’t know how that happens.
BIDEN: But I don’t think we can give up on the possibility. I don’t think we can give up on the possibility. I don’t think we should be naïve about it. I think we have to do a number of things in the meantime to make it clear to Russia that they are going to pay a price for many of the things they have done, in addition to making sure that we just, in effect, advertise to the Russian population and to all of Western Europe what they’re actually doing.
I mean, here we are, we’re talking about Russian interference in the United States, whether there was collusion between the Trump administration and Russia. That’s obscured a much larger discussion that should be taking place about whether or not what Russia is doing in the rest of the world right now and what Russia is doing in Europe right now. And part of it is just pulling the—pulling the Band-Aid off.
And for example, we recommend in here an international commission. Immediately, we got response from a number—I got response from a number of European leaders wanting to set up an international commission, an independent commission made up of all parties, the mainstream parties in Europe, to actually spend time and do what we haven’t done here, look at what Russia is doing in Europe right now that their publics do not know. Because when they do know it, their influence diminishes precipitously, like it did in France in this election, like it has in—but part of this is that there is not much discussion. And our leadership has been abdicated.
Your point is there’s three ways you lose power. One is just, you know, abdicate. Well, that’s what we’re doing. And part of it is just going out and telling—it sounds almost sophomoric—tell the truth, lay out what’s happening out there and get the international community to join in in terms of providing the hard data after some serious looks as to what is going on.
And the second thing is, if you’re sitting here—and when my grandchildren are writing their senior thesis to some great university about what happened to Russia, in 2018 what was the consensus in America about what Russia was going to look like in 2030? Well, you know, I wouldn’t want to have to be in a position—I often say to classes I teach, I would not want to be in a position, no matter what approach I took, of having to lead Russia. Look at—look at the state of Russia now. They’re in enormous decline. They’re—by any definition, these guys are on a toboggan run. The question is when the run ends. You know, they have a second-rate military power. They have significant advantages geographically, where they’re engaged. They have a nuclear arsenal that is—can blow up the whole world. But in terms of their efficacy, their capacity is de minimis compared to ours. They’re in a situation where they’re an oil-based economy. You have Gazprom going from a market value of something like $350 billion to $50 billion in the last 10 years.
What do you do if you are a democratic leader of Russia? What do you do? How do you provide jobs for your people? Where do you go? How do you build that country, unless you engage the West? I don’t know how that happens.
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honorentheos
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Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine
BIDEN Cont. -
Now, the last point I’ll make is—you all know it better than I do—that, you know, when nation—my dad had an expression, never back a man in a corner whose only way out is over top of you. Well, you know, take a look at Russia now. Where do they go? They’re incredibly dangerous as they continue to engage in this precipitous decline. Their life expectancy is changing. They’re expected to be a 20 percent smaller population by 2050. I can go on. And so the—it’s going to be a really tough, tough time to get them to the place where their citizens think they have any future.
And he’s—and the last point. This new, phony nationalism and populism that is being used by charlatans all across the world right now, the only thing keeping Putin where he is is that it’s the United States is the enemy. He’s going to demonstrate that they’re powerful again. But eventually he’s going to have to produce something, and I don’t see where it gets produced, absent a change in behavior.—that, you know, when nation—my dad had an expression, never back a man in a corner whose only way out is over top of you. Well, you know, take a look at Russia now. Where do they go? They’re incredibly dangerous as they continue to engage in this precipitous decline. Their life expectancy is changing. They’re expected to be a 20 percent smaller population by 2050. I can go on. And so the—it’s going to be a really tough, tough time to get them to the place where their citizens think they have any future.
Now, the last point I’ll make is—you all know it better than I do—that, you know, when nation—my dad had an expression, never back a man in a corner whose only way out is over top of you. Well, you know, take a look at Russia now. Where do they go? They’re incredibly dangerous as they continue to engage in this precipitous decline. Their life expectancy is changing. They’re expected to be a 20 percent smaller population by 2050. I can go on. And so the—it’s going to be a really tough, tough time to get them to the place where their citizens think they have any future.
And he’s—and the last point. This new, phony nationalism and populism that is being used by charlatans all across the world right now, the only thing keeping Putin where he is is that it’s the United States is the enemy. He’s going to demonstrate that they’re powerful again. But eventually he’s going to have to produce something, and I don’t see where it gets produced, absent a change in behavior.—that, you know, when nation—my dad had an expression, never back a man in a corner whose only way out is over top of you. Well, you know, take a look at Russia now. Where do they go? They’re incredibly dangerous as they continue to engage in this precipitous decline. Their life expectancy is changing. They’re expected to be a 20 percent smaller population by 2050. I can go on. And so the—it’s going to be a really tough, tough time to get them to the place where their citizens think they have any future.
Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine
If so, then the only thing I can think of that makes it more complicated is if they're bluffing. If they aren't bluffing, I fail to see why not cut to the chase? And that's why I think NATO can step in and drive them out of Ukraine. Fortunately, the Whitehouse isn't considering my personal views, to my knowledge.Chap wrote:I think it is probably a bit more complicated than that.
" Nonstrategic nuclear weapons (NSNW) are reserved for escalation management in the context of a regional war, after conventional means have proven ineffective...."
If that is their doctrine, then I'm going to have to go with the picture being as simple as I painted it until somebody can show me specifically why that's wrong.
However, Sergey Lavrov recently maintained this version publicly:
"Today, Russian’s military doctrine says the country will use nuclear weapons against attacks by conventional forces that represent an existential threat to the country or in retaliation for a nuclear or WMD attack."
Is it that they deploy nukes if they're losing a conventional war they started, or is it that they use nukes to defend themselves if attacked? Muddying the waters is their doctrine of "active defense" (see that first document) -- offensive war under the pretense of defense. And so, the most logically consistent version is that if Russia ever deploys a troop for any reason, it's defense. If Russia rolls an MLRSs in to level a city of innocent people and anybody forcibly stops them, then that is as much of an existential threat to Russia as their borders being breached by enemy tanks.
How much of it is real, and how much is bluff? Lavrov's underplay of what their doctrine actually is amidst the Tucker Carlson's of Russia calling to nuke Poland, Putin's publicity stunt of putting his nuclear forces on high alert on international TV and then no intelligence backs up the threat, the doubling or tripling down of conventional forces, tell me it's bluff, and so yes, it's more complicated.
NATO is also a bluff. It's a similar kind of deterrence. If you strike us, we're forced by our doctrine to all unite and strike back, but nobody is actually forcing anyone to do anything.
Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine
I wouldn't think you are right there. Fulfilling treaties like the North Atlantic Treaty is not optional.
(By the way, I assume that by 'strike back' you simply mean 'take all necessary measures to defend ourselves and our allies'.)
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Mayan Elephant:
Not only have I denounced the Big Lie, I have denounced the Big lie big lie.
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Mayan Elephant:
Not only have I denounced the Big Lie, I have denounced the Big lie big lie.
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Dr. Shades
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Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Umm, that doesn't refute my statement at all.Moksha wrote: ↑Sun Apr 10, 2022 8:20 amPutin joined the KGB in 1975 during the time of Leonid Brezhnev. Stalin died less than a year after Putin was born.Dr. Shades wrote: ↑Sun Apr 10, 2022 5:38 amPutin was too young to have worked for the KGB under Stalin.
"It’s ironic that the Church that people claim to be true, puts so much effort into hiding truths."
--I Have Questions, 01-25-2024
--I Have Questions, 01-25-2024
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Jersey Girl
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Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Well...it doesn't look like a refutation because it's not. Moksha added information that your own post lacked. See how that works?
We only get stronger when we are lifting something that is heavier than what we are used to. ~ KF
Slava Ukraini!
Slava Ukraini!
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Jersey Girl
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Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Tucking this in right here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NicWjYMPDG0
Julian Lennon Performs 'IMAGINE' for Global Citizen's Stand Up For Ukraine w/Nuno Bettencourt“The War on Ukraine is an unimaginable tragedy... As a human, and as an artist, I felt compelled to respond in the most significant way I could.
So today, for the first time ever, I publicly performed my Dad’s song, IMAGINE.
Why now, after all these years? - I had always said, that the only time I would ever consider singing ‘IMAGINE' would be if it was the ‘End of the World’…
But also because his lyrics reflect our collective desire for peace worldwide. Because within this song, we’re transported to a space, where love and togetherness become our reality, if but for a moment in time…
The song reflects the light at the end of the tunnel, that we are all hoping for...
As a result of the ongoing murderous violence, millions of innocent families, have been forced to leave the comfort of their homes, to seek asylum elsewhere.
I’m calling on world leaders and everyone who believes in the sentiment of IMAGINE, to stand up for refugees everywhere! Please advocate and donate from the heart. #StandUpForUkraine”
—Julian Lennon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NicWjYMPDG0
We only get stronger when we are lifting something that is heavier than what we are used to. ~ KF
Slava Ukraini!
Slava Ukraini!