Russia Discussion

https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/10/0...-be-a-big-problem-for-the-next-u-s-president/

The so-called “Panama Papers” — the millions of leaked documents from the Panamanian corporate law firm Mossack Fonseca last April also proved that President Petro Poroshenko was busy registering offshore accounts even as his own troops were retreating from one of the bloodiest defeats of the war.

Poroshenko is Europe’s richest leader according to Forbes, and despite his promises to “embed new traditions” by selling off his assets, he has sold nothing. In fact, he was the only one of Ukraine’s wealthy businessmen to see his net worth actually increase in 2015, to $858 million. Like his predecessor Viktor Yanukovich, he has erased the thin line once existed between business and politics in Ukraine and he is profiting richly, even as his country struggles through the worst economic and political crisis since the 1991 independence.

Perhaps most dispiriting of all, even those Ukrainian activists, politicians, and journalists who are portrayed as true reformers appear likewise unable to resist the temptation to engage in the systemic looting of the Ukrainian economy.

In early September, the New Yorker magazine dedicated several thousand words to three citizen-journalists who now serve in the Ukrainian Parliament. Like other western media outlets, the New Yorker portrayed Sergei Leshchenko, Svitlana Zalishchuk, and Mustafa Nayem as dedicated journalists — new faces who sought election to parliament as part of President Poroshenko’s bloc in the wake of the Maidan street protests, which Nayem helped organize.

Now, however, Leshchenko’s post-election acquisition of high-end housing has attracted the attention of the Anti-Corruption Agency of Ukraine, an investigatory body that was established at the urging of the United States. Last week, the Anti-Corruption Agency forwarded the Leshchenko file to the special prosecutor’s office tasked with corruption fighting. Leshchenko could not explain the source of the income that allowed him to buy the residence, loan documents are missing, and the purchase price was allegedly below market

The owner of the building, according to Ukrainian media accounts, is Ivan Fursin, the partner of mega-oligarch Dmytro Firtash.

Recent reports have revealed that Leshchenko’s expenses for attending international forums were paid for by the oligarch Viktor Pinchuk who also contributed $8,6 million to the Clinton Foundation While Leshchenko remains the toast of the western media and Washington think tanks, back at home, his fellow reformers in the Parliament are calling on him to resign until his name is cleared.

Meanwhile, the next president is sure to find Ukraine besieged on all sides: With Russian troops and pro-Russian rebels at its throat and corruption destroying it from within —and as the Leshchenko scandal suggests, not all in Ukraine is what it appears to be.

The new president must learn to discern Ukraine’s true reformers from those who made anti-corruption crusades into a lucrative business, and be able to distinguish real action from empty words.

If not, the two and a half decades-long Ukrainian experiment with independence may boil over completely."
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The Mafia State at it again.....should be good for another round of sectoral sanctions.




Leaked docs appear to reveal Russia's plan to destabilize Ukraine
By Nikita Vladimirov

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-brief...l-russias-alleged-plan-to-destabilize-ukraine

Russia may have developed a sophisticated plan to politically destabilize Ukraine in the near future, according to several leaked documents from a top Kremlin official.

Alongside nearly 2,000 emails, a Ukrainian hacker group "CyberJunta" on Tuesday released additional documents allegedly belonging to top Putin adviser Vladislav Surkov.

The documents appear to detail Surkov's strategy to politically destabilize Russia's European neighbor and work closely with major opposition leaders in Ukraine.

"Achievement of the aforementioned objectives requires destabilization of political life in Ukraine, and must be followed by immediate Parliamentary and presidential elections," one document states.

The documents are presented as detailed timelines of a geopolitical operation that is supposed to last between November 2016 and March 2017.

One of the documents provides a clear six-step plan to subvert Ukraine's socio-political institutions.

The plan includes initiatives to "hold talks with leaders of the Ukrainian opposition" in November, "insert 'right' people into the volunteer movement" for the purposes of "internal influence and spread of information" by the end of December, and negotiate with business leaders that have "power leverage" over Ukrainian lawmakers until the end of fall.

Other steps include organizing fake protestors in order to "discredit government and law enforcement systems," activation of "national minority groups" in an effort to advocate peaceful relations with Russia, and infusion of "influential politicians" into local media for the purposes of casting doubt on the effectiveness of Ukrainian lawmakers.

The Kremlin on Tuesday denied the legitimacy of the leak, stating that the documents do not belong to Surkov.

"I know Surkov for more than ten years and all sorts of things have always been imputed to him, either by our hacker or by foreign hackers," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as reported by TAAS.

"He is a talented man, so, it’s only natural that they have always been seeking to impute different alleged intentions to him."

"In most cases, it has nothing to do with the real state of things," Peskov added.

However, the chief of staff to the head of the Ukrainian intelligence, Oleksandr Tkachuk, claims that the documents are real, according to Foreign Policy.

Surkov, who has been a senior Russian official since 1999, is believed by many to be one of the top masterminds behind Russian annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula in 2014.

Russia has consistently denied involvement in the ongoing Ukrainian conflict despite the evidence that connects many pro-Russian rebel forces with Kremlin.
 
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Those so-called leaks are badly made fakes, full of grammar and other obvious errors and other laughable stuff, they look like they were written by an 8-year old 'C' student and were clearly made for "internal use" in order to settle some scores between political opponents in Kiev. They conveniently omit certain Ukrainan politicians, like president Poroshenko and Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov (leaders of the two biggest parties in the parliament, PPB and People's Front, that have formed coalition there) while making it look like others, like Yulia Timoshenko (current president's biggest opponent, she was released from prison when Maidan kicked out Yanukovich), Oleg Lyashko, leader of the Radical Party and, curiously enough, Maidan spiritual leaders and US proteges from the country's most pro-Western party Democratic Alliance, such as Mustafa Nayem, Sergey Leshenko and others are all somehow just pawns in a game of manipulation played by Putin's close aide Vladislav Surkov.

This is just another move in a dirty political fight amongst various factions within the Ukrainian political universe. It couldn't possibly affect Surkov or Putin, even if those docs were authentic, but it's clearly directed at some political groups vying for power and heavily criticizing the current leadership of Ukraine for its unwillingness to pass reforms and widespread corruption, among other things. Timoshenko especially is the most dangerous opponent for the current regime, her ratings are pretty solid and are certainly bigger than the president's, as for the People's Front, its founders are former members of her party 'Batkivshina'(Fatherland) that left her to form their own party and are currently her bitter enemies.

Things are heating up down in Ukraine, the disappointment from the results of Maidan is growing stronger and stronger and the political scandals and squabbles demonstrate the growing tension. The president, the government and the current parliament are having the lowest ratings in the history of independent Ukraine. The EU association has left the country without their traditional trade partners, Russia and other former USSR republics, while the Euopean market has no use for most of what Ukraine produces. The economy is in a freefall, crime is on the rise, the 'party of war' is dominant in the parliament and prevents the president from even thinking of implementing the Minsk agreements while most of the citizens are confused, angry and disillusioned with what's going on.The flight of the population continues to grow since the prospects for the next few years are quite gloom. And, oh yeah, let's not forget that it's all Putin's fault.Viva la revolución.
 
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JustAFan said:
Are we still going on with the whole "There's a bunch of Neo-Nazi's/Facists" ruling the Ukraine stuff?
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Pretty much. AntiHenry's posts basically sync up well with Putin's propaganda echo chamber.
 
Rather than continuing to steal Ukrainian land, you would think Putin would simply launch a campaign to (re)install his own candidate in Ukraine during the next election. Seems to have worked in other countries, so you'd think Ukraine would be quite straight forward.
 
Raoul said:
Rather than continuing to steal Ukrainian land, you would think Putin would simply launch a campaign to (re)install his own candidate in Ukraine during the next election. Seems to have worked in other countries, so you'd think Ukraine would be quite straight forward.
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Before spouting more nonsense about things you know very little about, like Ukrainian history, you better give back those poor Native Americans their land back.
 
Raoul said:
I'm expecting Vlad to make another push in Ukraine at some point. He will use Trump's perceived apathy to push back against him and the fact that Russian Presidential "elections" are just around the corner to drum up a bit of nationalism to help him at home. The land bridge through Mariupol to Crimea would seem a logical next step project.
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Sounds about right. I only realised it was probably the case when I read Obama’s reasoning for not pushing back. Half the issue he had with Obama was his pragmatism made it difficult to justify a reactionary response. He had none of that trouble with his boy at the helm.
 
Pexbo said:
Sounds about right. I only realised it was probably the case when I read Obama’s reasoning for not pushing back. Half the issue he had with Obama was his pragmatism made it difficult to justify a reactionary response. He had none of that trouble with his boy at the helm.
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There are a lot of reasons why Obama didn't push harder in Ukraine, first and foremost is that Ukraine is basically Russias line in the sand over national security. If you push them too hard, they will go to war, and based on the precedent set by NATO countries regarding foreign intervention on the basis of national security, Russia would have a very strong case and the moral upper hand in such an incident. Having an openly anti-Russian government on their border is unthinkable to them, and given the historical context of the 19th and 20th centuries regarding Russia->USSR and hostile countries on their border, it's pretty obvious why. To allude to another recent discussion. Not understanding why Russia doesn't like openly hostile countries on their border, is like not understanding the historical context behind black face being offensive. If you don't know the history, once you do, you should understand why this is how it is in both cases.

Obama not escalating is why Russia didn't go into Ukraine in any sort of force. Likewise, when the CIA began funding the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, it presented a national security issue for the USSR that they couldn't ignore due to the internal momentum of the country. If Trump escalates in Ukraine, depending on how large the escalation is, Putin will almost certainly go into Ukraine in force, and he will be justified in doing so based on those precedents I already mentioned and the historical context of the region. Maybe that's what Trump and Putin want?!
 
Nucks said:
There are a lot of reasons why Obama didn't push harder in Ukraine, first and foremost is that Ukraine is basically Russias line in the sand over national security. If you push them too hard, they will go to war, and based on the precedent set by NATO countries regarding foreign intervention on the basis of national security, Russia would have a very strong case and the moral upper hand in such an incident. Having an openly anti-Russian government on their border is unthinkable to them, and given the historical context of the 19th and 20th centuries regarding Russia->USSR and hostile countries on their border, it's pretty obvious why. To allude to another recent discussion. Not understanding why Russia doesn't like openly hostile countries on their border, is like not understanding the historical context behind black face being offensive. If you don't know the history, once you do, you should understand why this is how it is in both cases.

Obama not escalating is why Russia didn't go into Ukraine in any sort of force. Likewise, when the CIA began funding the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, it presented a national security issue for the USSR that they couldn't ignore due to the internal momentum of the country. If Trump escalates in Ukraine, depending on how large the escalation is, Putin will almost certainly go into Ukraine in force, and he will be justified in doing so based on those precedents I already mentioned and the historical context of the region. Maybe that's what Trump and Putin want?!
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The trouble with your above comments is you are privileging the Russian view as if it is somehow more legitimate than the U.S., European or Ukrainian views. Most people who don't have a dog in the fight wouldn't have any problem with sovereign countries making their own decisions as to what sort of governance they choose to have; especially if they are attempting to transition from corrupt Russian satellite state to modern Democracy. Thus, the Ukrainians are entirely within their rights to hold elections and align themselves with whoever they want. Putin's "psychotically jealous ex-lover" political platform on Ukraine doesn't trump Ukraine's right to self-determination and ability to make friends with whichever other states it wants; relative to its own unique geopolitical aspirations. Furthermore, we know that Putin's obsession with meddling in Ukraine is not about any sort of legitimate grievance on his part, but rather a convenient way to drum up nationalism back home in order to obfuscate from the reality that he is a dictator who has led his country astray. Thus you can't view this in terms of just geo-politics since there are complex substate politics driving the policies of each of the players.
 
Raoul said:
The trouble with your above comments is you are privileging the Russian view as if it is somehow more legitimate than the U.S., European or Ukrainian views. Most people who don't have a dog in the fight wouldn't have any problem with sovereign countries making their own decisions as to what sort of governance they choose to have; especially if they are attempting to transition from corrupt Russian satellite state to modern Democracy. Thus, the Ukrainians are entirely within their rights to hold elections and align themselves with whoever they want. Putin's "psychotically jealous ex-lover" political platform on Ukraine doesn't trump Ukraine's right to self-determination and ability to make friends with whichever other states it wants; relative to its own unique geopolitical aspirations. Furthermore, we know that Putin's obsession with meddling in Ukraine is not about any sort of legitimate grievance on his part, but rather a convenient way to drum up nationalism back home in order to obfuscate from the reality that he is a dictator who has led his country astray. Thus you can't view this in terms of just geo-politics since there are complex substate politics driving the policies of each of the players.
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I'm not privileging it as anything other than real-politik. Ukraine doesn't really have a say in what happens on the extremes of its potential policy, it has to find a comfort zone between the poles. It should be able to choose its path, but it can't. The decision makers over Ukraines future are the US and its allies and Russia. Russia will view a unified Ukraine under the current government as a clear and present danger to national security and it will therefore leverage its strength against that happening. It will maintain buffer states in Eastern Ukraine, and if the tide turns against those states, expect a swift Russian escalation.

Russia in this case holds the strongest hand, the USA cares about Ukraine only to a point, likewise with NATO. The government in Kiev wants to severe ties with Russia (it has), it wants closer relations with the west. It is also extremely hostile to Russia, and Russias strategic concerns trump this, not because of privilege, or morality, or ideology, but rather because Russia will squash Ukraine if Ukraine threatens Russia with further NATO encirclement. The only question here is, is the US willing to go to war with Russia over Ukraine (unlikely worst case scenario), or (more likely and more immediate) is it willing to risk Russia suddenly supplying state of the art Ruskie arms to the various rebel groups fighting US and NATO forces around the world? In a tit for tat escalation.

If Canada suddenly went hard socialist, and broke as many economic and political ties as it could with the US in favor of China, what would the US response be? Should Canada be allowed to do this? Sure. Could it happen? No. Would it happen? The US wouldn't allow it to. Canadian foreign policy in this regard is much like Ukrainian, in that Canadas foreign policy is dictated by the fact that the US will prevent Canada from going to one extreme or another that would threaten US national security. The US also doesn't have a history of being invaded in the last 2 centuries to the cost of 50 odd million dead, which Russia and the USSR did. This is something, Napoleonic War, Crimean War, WW1, Russian Civil War, WW2, these are wars that have shaped the very foundational identity of Russia and Russians. Their concerns over their history are no less valid than the concerns of Israel and its right to exist in Palestine, a vast historical trauma has shaped their national identity and when you deal with Russia you should be cognizant of that. This is why we have a losing hand in Ukraine. Russia will go to the wall on this, we won't, so why are we pushing.

I see it as a continuation of fear politics that have dominated US domestic policy since WW2, or perhaps even earlier. If we don't have an enemy we create one, in an effort to justify or perhaps feed the military industrial complex. The US economy needs that rival, or that enemy to justify the defense spending. We also view a resurgent Russia as a threat to our economic hegemony outside the Chinese sphere, so undermining and destabilizing is standard operating procedure. We moved NATO to the Russian doorstep along the majority of its European border when Russia was in no position to resist, but now they are and they will. Whatever the motivations are on either side are ultimately irrelevant. It's a case of "Not what you know, but what you can prove" applied to "It's not what your motivation is, but what you can justify". Putin can justify intervention in Ukraine because of the historical fear of invasion and the real fear of NATO encirclement. With that, he can justify anything, and we in the west have only solidified that justification with our own interventions around the world in the last 75 odd years in the name of national security. It isn't a case of whataboutism, it's a case of historical, legal and moral precedent. If we have done it, they can justify it based on that pretext, and also the fact that the Russians/USSR have never openly intervened militarily on any country they didn't share a border with (until very recently), which NATO cannot say.

You're right, but you're also wrong. It may be just about drumming up nationalist support for his "elections" but that doesn't really matter, because he doesn't have to twist the knife very hard because everything he could potentially do in Ukraine is going to be absolutely justifiable to Russians, and internationally anyone who condemns him for acting on the fears of his population which me may or may not be exploiting for political gain, are massive hypocrites if they come from a NATO country. Again, this isn't whataboutism, it's about justification. His population will want it, that is his domestic justification, and the precedent for interventions based on national security fears is something that is well and truly established by the US and the UK, the rest of NATO and even pre-dating NATO.

All that really will matter is, can he justify it to his people? Yes. Is it justified based on the current political climate we've established as de-jure? Yes. Does it suck for Ukraine? Yes. Should Ukraine be entitled to complete self determination? Yes. Will Ukraine be allowed complete self determination? No. Why? The previous 5 paragraphs explain why :)
 
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Nucks said:
I'm not privileging it as anything other than real-politik. Ukraine doesn't really have a say in what happens on the extremes of its potential policy, it has to find a comfort zone between the poles. It should be able to choose its path, but it can't. The decision makers over Ukraines future are the US and its allies and Russia. Russia will view a unified Ukraine under the current government as a clear and present danger to national security and it will therefore leverage its strength against that happening. It will maintain buffer states in Eastern Ukraine, and if the tide turns against those states, expect a swift Russian escalation.


Russia in this case holds the strongest hand, the USA cares about Ukraine only to a point, likewise with NATO. The government in Kiev wants to severe ties with Russia (it has), it wants closer relations with the west. It is also extremely hostile to Russia, and Russias strategic concerns trump this, not because of privilege, or morality, or ideology, but rather because Russia will squash Ukraine if Ukraine threatens Russia with further NATO encirclement. The only question here is, is the US willing to go to war with Russia over Ukraine (unlikely worst case scenario), or (more likely and more immediate) is it willing to risk Russia suddenly supplying state of the art Ruskie arms to the various rebel groups fighting US and NATO forces around the world? In a tit for tat escalation.

If Canada suddenly went hard socialist, and broke as many economic and political ties as it could with the US in favor of China, what would the US response be? Should Canada be allowed to do this? Sure. Could it happen? No. Would it happen? The US wouldn't allow it to. Canadian foreign policy in this regard is much like Ukrainian, in that Canada's foreign policy is dictated by the fact that the US will prevent Canada from going to one extreme or another that would threaten US national security. The US also doesn't have a history of being invaded in the last 2 centuries to the cost of 50 odd million dead, which Russia and the USSR did. This is something, Crimean War, Napoleonic War, WW1, Russian Civil War, WW2, these are wars that have shaped the very foundational identity of Russia and Russians. Their concerns over their history are no less valid than the concerns of Israel and its right to exist in Palestine, a vast historical trauma has shaped their national identity and when you deal with Russia you should be cognizant of that. This is why we have a losing hand in Ukraine. Russia will go to the wall on this, we won't, so why are we pushing.

I see it as a continuation of fear politics that have dominated US domestic policy since WW2, or perhaps even earlier. If we don't have an enemy we create one, in an effort to justify or perhaps feed the military industrial complex. The US economy needs that rival, or that enemy to justify the defense spending. We also view a resurgent Russia as a threat to our economic hegemony outside the Chinese sphere, so undermining and destabilizing is standard operating procedure. We moved NATO to the Russian doorstep along the majority of its European border when Russia was in no position to resist, but now they are and they will. Whatever the motivations are on either side are ultimately irrelevant. It's a case of "Not what you know, but what you can prove" applied to "It's not what your motivation is, but what you can justify". Putin can justify intervention in Ukraine because of the historical fear of invasion and the real fear of NATO encirclement. With that, he can justify anything, and we in the west have only solidified that justification with our own interventions around the world in the last 75 odd years in the name of national security. It isn't a case of whataboutism, it's a case of historical, legal and moral precedent. If we have done it, they can justify it based on that pretext, and also the fact that the Russians/USSR have never openly intervened militarily on any country they didn't share a border, which NATO cannot say.

You're right, but you're also wrong. It may be just about drumming up nationalist support for his "elections" but that doesn't really matter, because he doesn't have to twist the knife very hard because everything he could potentially do in Ukraine is going to be absolutely justifiable to Russians, and internationally anyone who condemns him for acting on the fears of his population which me may or may not be exploiting for political gain, are massive hypocrites if they come from a NATO country. Again, this isn't whataboutism, it's about justification. His population will want it, that is his domestic justification, and the precedent for interventions based on national security fears is something that is well and truly established by the US and the UK, the rest of NATO and even pre-dating NATO.

All that really will matter is, can he justify it to his people? Yes. Is it justified based on the current political climate we've established as de-jure? Yes. Does it suck for Ukraine? Yes. Should Ukraine be entitled to complete self determination? Yes. Will Ukraine be allowed complete self determination? No. Why? The previous 5 paragraphs explain why :)
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Not quite. You think Ukraine has no say in its own affairs when it clearly does, as it should. Simply throwing up your hands in the air and saying Russia is going to Russia isn't a particularly insightful way of looking at this, as the problem isn't some manifestation of state interests clumsily bouncing off one another like pinballs, but rather its one of sub state affairs happening within each country. Ukrainians are simply acting out their own domestic aspirations and Putin is attempting to assuage his political base through nationalistic propaganda and neo-imperialism. Ultimately this is all about his own self-preservation.

As for the Canadian example, it doesn't really work since you are talking about two democratic systems as opposed to in Russia; a corrupt, Kleptocratic dictatorship attempting to expand into a sovereign country. The U.S. in the present certainly wouldn't like Canada going full on socialist, but it obviously would not try to invade and annex part of Ontario or invade BC and turn it into a frozen conflict for political purposes.

As for your historical references about Russian identity - that's not really what this is about. There are ethnic Russians all over the place in Belarus, the Baltics, Ukraine, and many other former Soviet republics. The only reason this is happening in Ukraine is because Putin can't have a Democracy on his front door for fear of an Orange revolution in Moscow, which would almost certainly lead to his own death. Therefore talk of preserving Russian identity is merely a propagandist red herring intended to justify Putin's neo-imperialist ambitions.
 
Nucks said:
I'm not privileging it as anything other than real-politik. Ukraine doesn't really have a say in what happens on the extremes of its potential policy, it has to find a comfort zone between the poles. It should be able to choose its path, but it can't. The decision makers over Ukraines future are the US and its allies and Russia. Russia will view a unified Ukraine under the current government as a clear and present danger to national security and it will therefore leverage its strength against that happening. It will maintain buffer states in Eastern Ukraine, and if the tide turns against those states, expect a swift Russian escalation.

Russia in this case holds the strongest hand, the USA cares about Ukraine only to a point, likewise with NATO. The government in Kiev wants to severe ties with Russia (it has), it wants closer relations with the west. It is also extremely hostile to Russia, and Russias strategic concerns trump this, not because of privilege, or morality, or ideology, but rather because Russia will squash Ukraine if Ukraine threatens Russia with further NATO encirclement. The only question here is, is the US willing to go to war with Russia over Ukraine (unlikely worst case scenario), or (more likely and more immediate) is it willing to risk Russia suddenly supplying state of the art Ruskie arms to the various rebel groups fighting US and NATO forces around the world? In a tit for tat escalation.

If Canada suddenly went hard socialist, and broke as many economic and political ties as it could with the US in favor of China, what would the US response be? Should Canada be allowed to do this? Sure. Could it happen? No. Would it happen? The US wouldn't allow it to. Canadian foreign policy in this regard is much like Ukrainian, in that Canadas foreign policy is dictated by the fact that the US will prevent Canada from going to one extreme or another that would threaten US national security. The US also doesn't have a history of being invaded in the last 2 centuries to the cost of 50 odd million dead, which Russia and the USSR did. This is something, Napoleonic War, Crimean War, WW1, Russian Civil War, WW2, these are wars that have shaped the very foundational identity of Russia and Russians. Their concerns over their history are no less valid than the concerns of Israel and its right to exist in Palestine, a vast historical trauma has shaped their national identity and when you deal with Russia you should be cognizant of that. This is why we have a losing hand in Ukraine. Russia will go to the wall on this, we won't, so why are we pushing.

I see it as a continuation of fear politics that have dominated US domestic policy since WW2, or perhaps even earlier. If we don't have an enemy we create one, in an effort to justify or perhaps feed the military industrial complex. The US economy needs that rival, or that enemy to justify the defense spending. We also view a resurgent Russia as a threat to our economic hegemony outside the Chinese sphere, so undermining and destabilizing is standard operating procedure. We moved NATO to the Russian doorstep along the majority of its European border when Russia was in no position to resist, but now they are and they will. Whatever the motivations are on either side are ultimately irrelevant. It's a case of "Not what you know, but what you can prove" applied to "It's not what your motivation is, but what you can justify". Putin can justify intervention in Ukraine because of the historical fear of invasion and the real fear of NATO encirclement. With that, he can justify anything, and we in the west have only solidified that justification with our own interventions around the world in the last 75 odd years in the name of national security. It isn't a case of whataboutism, it's a case of historical, legal and moral precedent. If we have done it, they can justify it based on that pretext, and also the fact that the Russians/USSR have never openly intervened militarily on any country they didn't share a border with (until very recently), which NATO cannot say.

You're right, but you're also wrong. It may be just about drumming up nationalist support for his "elections" but that doesn't really matter, because he doesn't have to twist the knife very hard because everything he could potentially do in Ukraine is going to be absolutely justifiable to Russians, and internationally anyone who condemns him for acting on the fears of his population which me may or may not be exploiting for political gain, are massive hypocrites if they come from a NATO country. Again, this isn't whataboutism, it's about justification. His population will want it, that is his domestic justification, and the precedent for interventions based on national security fears is something that is well and truly established by the US and the UK, the rest of NATO and even pre-dating NATO.

All that really will matter is, can he justify it to his people? Yes. Is it justified based on the current political climate we've established as de-jure? Yes. Does it suck for Ukraine? Yes. Should Ukraine be entitled to complete self determination? Yes. Will Ukraine be allowed complete self determination? No. Why? The previous 5 paragraphs explain why :)
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Brilliant post, agree on everything.

Problem is, it'll fall on deaf ears. Raoul and others like him would never accept the idea that America should respect other countries' interests. There's only one power in the world and we will decide what's what no matter which part of the world we're talking about, that's their motto. The rest is just self-serving bullshit.

I remember Putin being asked about US possibly supplying Ukraine with weapons a few weeks ago (which is a done deal now) and he replied that if our interests are threatened in such manner, then we'll find a way to supply our enemies' enemies with Russian weapons. There are plenty of conflicts US military are involved in. You can do the math. It's only a matter of time before it spins completely out of control.

At the end of the day, this is not about Ukraine, it never was. It's about the world's superpower refusing to recognize that times have changed and that they need to adapt to the new reality and rethink their priorities. Russia can be made to suffer economically but you'd have to be totally ignorant of Russians and their history if you bet on them bowing down to your will because their living conditions got worse. This is the country and nation that went through an absolute hell throughout their history and is still there. If anything, it'll unite them in the anti-Western stance and make them even more determined to stand up to the US.
 
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antihenry said:
Brilliant post, agree on everything.

Problem is, it'll fall on deaf ears. Raoul and others like him would never accept the idea that America should respect other countries' interests. There's only one power in the world and we will decide what's what no matter which part of the world we're talking about, that's their motto. The rest is just self-serving bullshit.

I remember Putin being asked about US possibly supplying Ukraine with weapons a few weeks ago (which is a done deal now) and he replied that if our interests are threatened in such manner, then we'll find a way to supply our enemies' enemies with Russian weapons. There are plenty of conflicts US military are involved in. You can do the math. It's only a matter of time before it spins completely out of control.

At the end of the day, this is not about Ukraine, it never was. It's about the world's superpower refusing to recognize that times have changed and that they need to adapt to the new reality and rethink their priorities. Russia can be made to suffer economically but you'd have to be totally ignorant of Russians and their history if you bet on them bowing down to your will because their living conditions got worse. This is the country and nation that went through an absolute hell throughout their history and is still there. If anything, it'll unite them in the anti-Western stance and make them even more determined to stand up to the US.
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You’re conflicting your own position on respecting other countries interests. Ukraine has every right to have its own domestic political interests and pursue them with whichever countries it would like. Russia has zero right to interfere by invading them, stealing their land, etc

The overarching problem as always is Putin’s insecurity about having a Slavic democratic system next door. If Russian citizens see that the Ukrainians can successfully live under Democracy then Putin knows that will rapidly spread to Russia at which point he knows he is finished. That is the overarching driver of all his policy decisions.
 
Nucks said:
I'm not privileging it as anything other than real-politik. Ukraine doesn't really have a say in what happens on the extremes of its potential policy, it has to find a comfort zone between the poles. It should be able to choose its path, but it can't. The decision makers over Ukraines future are the US and its allies and Russia. Russia will view a unified Ukraine under the current government as a clear and present danger to national security and it will therefore leverage its strength against that happening. It will maintain buffer states in Eastern Ukraine, and if the tide turns against those states, expect a swift Russian escalation.

Russia in this case holds the strongest hand, the USA cares about Ukraine only to a point, likewise with NATO. The government in Kiev wants to severe ties with Russia (it has), it wants closer relations with the west. It is also extremely hostile to Russia, and Russias strategic concerns trump this, not because of privilege, or morality, or ideology, but rather because Russia will squash Ukraine if Ukraine threatens Russia with further NATO encirclement. The only question here is, is the US willing to go to war with Russia over Ukraine (unlikely worst case scenario), or (more likely and more immediate) is it willing to risk Russia suddenly supplying state of the art Ruskie arms to the various rebel groups fighting US and NATO forces around the world? In a tit for tat escalation.

If Canada suddenly went hard socialist, and broke as many economic and political ties as it could with the US in favor of China, what would the US response be? Should Canada be allowed to do this? Sure. Could it happen? No. Would it happen? The US wouldn't allow it to. Canadian foreign policy in this regard is much like Ukrainian, in that Canadas foreign policy is dictated by the fact that the US will prevent Canada from going to one extreme or another that would threaten US national security. The US also doesn't have a history of being invaded in the last 2 centuries to the cost of 50 odd million dead, which Russia and the USSR did. This is something, Napoleonic War, Crimean War, WW1, Russian Civil War, WW2, these are wars that have shaped the very foundational identity of Russia and Russians. Their concerns over their history are no less valid than the concerns of Israel and its right to exist in Palestine, a vast historical trauma has shaped their national identity and when you deal with Russia you should be cognizant of that. This is why we have a losing hand in Ukraine. Russia will go to the wall on this, we won't, so why are we pushing.

I see it as a continuation of fear politics that have dominated US domestic policy since WW2, or perhaps even earlier. If we don't have an enemy we create one, in an effort to justify or perhaps feed the military industrial complex. The US economy needs that rival, or that enemy to justify the defense spending. We also view a resurgent Russia as a threat to our economic hegemony outside the Chinese sphere, so undermining and destabilizing is standard operating procedure. We moved NATO to the Russian doorstep along the majority of its European border when Russia was in no position to resist, but now they are and they will. Whatever the motivations are on either side are ultimately irrelevant. It's a case of "Not what you know, but what you can prove" applied to "It's not what your motivation is, but what you can justify". Putin can justify intervention in Ukraine because of the historical fear of invasion and the real fear of NATO encirclement. With that, he can justify anything, and we in the west have only solidified that justification with our own interventions around the world in the last 75 odd years in the name of national security. It isn't a case of whataboutism, it's a case of historical, legal and moral precedent. If we have done it, they can justify it based on that pretext, and also the fact that the Russians/USSR have never openly intervened militarily on any country they didn't share a border with (until very recently), which NATO cannot say.

You're right, but you're also wrong. It may be just about drumming up nationalist support for his "elections" but that doesn't really matter, because he doesn't have to twist the knife very hard because everything he could potentially do in Ukraine is going to be absolutely justifiable to Russians, and internationally anyone who condemns him for acting on the fears of his population which me may or may not be exploiting for political gain, are massive hypocrites if they come from a NATO country. Again, this isn't whataboutism, it's about justification. His population will want it, that is his domestic justification, and the precedent for interventions based on national security fears is something that is well and truly established by the US and the UK, the rest of NATO and even pre-dating NATO.

All that really will matter is, can he justify it to his people? Yes. Is it justified based on the current political climate we've established as de-jure? Yes. Does it suck for Ukraine? Yes. Should Ukraine be entitled to complete self determination? Yes. Will Ukraine be allowed complete self determination? No. Why? The previous 5 paragraphs explain why :)
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Great post.
 
Raoul said:
Ukraine has every right to have its own domestic political interests and pursue them with whichever countries it would like. Russia has zero right to interfere by invading them, stealing their land, etc
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So did all those South American countries who America invaded/interfered with over the last 75 years. The reality though is that if you're in the sphere of influence of a superpower, then your rights to freely determine your political direction are going to be severely curtailed. It's not right, but its just the way the world is.
 
Kentonio said:
So did all those South American countries who America invaded/interfered with over the last 75 years. The reality though is that if you're in the sphere of influence of a superpower, then your rights to freely determine your political direction are going to be severely curtailed. It's not right, but its just the way the world is.
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I can't speak for things that happened generations ago. In the present however, we are living in starkly different world where rules and norms apply. I don't think anyone wants to be put in a position of having to defend Putin's actions in Russia just because similar things happened a long time ago.
 
Raoul said:
I can't speak for things that happened generations ago. In the present however, we are living in starkly different world where rules and norms apply. I don't think anyone wants to be put in a position of having to defend Putin's actions in Russia just because similar things happened a long time ago.
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It's not a defence per se, but we're not talking about distant history here. Obama didn't follow a particularly aggressive foreign policy, but the US using its power to influence other countries domestic politics has never stopped. It's just that under Obama it was done with a bit more subtlety. The US also has the advantage of having been the only superpower for a few decades, so it could use economic and political power without having to rely on military weight.
 
Kentonio said:
It's not a defence per se, but we're not talking about distant history here. Obama didn't follow a particularly aggressive foreign policy, but the US using its power to influence other countries domestic politics has never stopped. It's just that under Obama it was done with a bit more subtlety.
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Its long enough ago to where US policy and administrations have changed many times during the intervening period so it can't be applied in the present as a comparison to Putin's actions right now. There is a massive different between the application of soft power by promoting Democracy abroad and invading and stealing the land of a neighboring country.
 
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The US barely promotes democracy at home, let alone abroad. There's never been a good, benevolent superpower. The only hope people can really cling onto is that eventually the smaller nations will eventually be rich enough where it's not possible for the bigger ones to bully them.
 
Silva said:
The US barely promotes democracy at home, let alone abroad. There's never been a good, benevolent superpower. The only hope people can really cling onto is that eventually the smaller nations will eventually be rich enough where it's not possible for the bigger ones to bully them.
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Educate yourself on U.S. Public Diplomacy abroad and then lets chat.
 
This is bizarre. You guys cry foul over supposed US interference is Latin American countries where things have largely been internally dictated for decades now (which is why there is variance in US relations from one country to the other, and over time due to changing governments). Then Ukraine wants to be closer to Western Europe than Russia (like its hard to imagine why) and a collection of real-politik / whataboutist explanations come out of why Russia's paranoia of being invaded from Eastern Europe again is fair justification for the thousands of lives lost in the past few years.

You make this argument today, you have no moral leg to stand on when the next Dick Cheney comes around in the US, invades some half-relevant country on a neo-imperialistic pipe dream and causes death and despair to millions.
 
Silva said:
The US barely promotes democracy at home, let alone abroad. There's never been a good, benevolent superpower. The only hope people can really cling onto is that eventually the smaller nations will eventually be rich enough where it's not possible for the bigger ones to bully them.
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Don't know about that, seems like a blanket-statement (if my understanding of the term is correct).

Of course all nations to some degree do it for their own, but Russia helped Norway and many others under WW2 by pushing out the Nazis and leaving us to our own afterwards, instead of claiming to be saviors while conquering. Kirkenes and Zapolyarny (+Nikel to a lesser extent) has a fantastic relationship between them because the people from Kirkenes remember how they came to our aid when we desperately needed it and our own government couldn't spare many soldiers.
The Americans have done a lot to help countries rebuild with the Marshall-agreement. I'd of course say that both have had episodes where they've done outright nasty things, but that doesn't equal to them not having had positive influence. Politics is very rarely black and white after all.
 
Ødegaard said:
Don't know about that, seems like a blanket-statement (if my understanding of the term is correct).

Of course all nations to some degree do it for their own, but Russia helped Norway and many others under WW2 by pushing out the Nazis and leaving us to our own afterwards, instead of claiming tp be saviors while conquering. Kirkenes and Zapolyarny (+Nikel to a lesser extent) has a fantastic relationship between them because the people from Kirkenes remember how they came to our aid when we desperately needed it and our own government couldn't spare many soldiers.
The Americans have done a lot to help countries rebuild with the Marshall-agreement. I'd of course say that both have had episodes where they've done outright nasty things, but that doesn't equal to them not having had positive influence. Politics is very rarely black and white after all.
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Coincidentally, WW2 was when the old superpowers fell and new ones were born. America made it's riches lending money and selling arms to everyone, Russia took over every country it could get it's hands on. Do you really think Norway would have stayed this side of the iron curtain if Russia could have taken it?

The Marshal plan was necessary for America. A Europe was left to rot in ruins would have provided less resistance to Russia.
 
Silva said:
Feel free to point me to some resources, because from what I've read so far it's not pretty. The current head diplomat, Rex Tillerson, being a blatant crony for the oil companies.
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Tillerson is a political appointee - not someone worth discussing as it relates to PD policy that has been in place for some time over many administrations. For example, the U.S. has for decades had educational and cultural programs, student exchange programs that give free educations to people from foreign countries etc to promote democracy in their home countries. Cultural and Educational exchange is a perfectly acceptable way to go about it.
 
Silva said:
Coincidentally, WW2 was when the old superpowers fell and new ones were born. America made it's riches lending money and selling arms to everyone, Russia took over every country it could get it's hands on. Do you really think Norway would have stayed this side of the iron curtain if Russia could have taken it?

The Marshal plan was necessary for America. A Europe was left to rot in ruins would have provided less resistance to Russia.
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Yes. Russia were perfectly able to take over Norway and chose not to.
 
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