Dean
1yr ago
The fact that the Russians had to transport thousands of artillery shells a day for rolling artillery bombardment offenses is kind of the point of why a mobilization wouldn't really help much: the precondition for the already poor effectiveness in the Donbas was the artillery saturation in a salient where the Ukrainians couldn't risk their high-value artillery or air defense assets due to the nature of the salient, not local numbers of forces, which already favored the Russians. A general mobilization wouldn't have helped the Donbas offensive, even as forces unsupported by artillery/airpower wouldn't have been able to continue offenses elsewhere. Being unable to support too many invasion corridors is the entire reason the Russians withdrew from the Kiev axis, rather than dig in and play attrition there.
While having having more forces along the line might have allowed a stronger static defense against, say, the Kharkiv offensive, which appears to have been more opportunistic, the Russian mobilization of bodies wouldn't correspond with a mobilization of more artillery systems, as the artillery is already mobilized, and was already committed/concentrated. The same goes for the armor and airpower as well- the material advantages have already been mobilized, and in many respect squandered, as Western aid has in several respects flipped the quality advantage. Mobilizing armor divisions with no armor is just light infantry, and light infantry is what is best countered by the sort of systems that are bessed countered by the precision munition capabilities Russia no longer has.
A lot of this is because equipment is a force multiplier, but only when it enables and is enabled by other assets, and the Russian quality equipment that might have made a big difference with a mobilized manpower base earlier in the war is already gone, either expended early or attrited in the half-year since. It's not like there are warehouses of uncommitted precision munitions waiting for a general mobilization- the ones not reserved for NATO contingencies were largely used in the first month, most of what was left was again used in the second wave in the failed encirclement plans, and what's left is no longer obviously superior or more prevalent than Ukrainian material. It's not like a general mobilization is going to bring back the nearly 14 Armored Brigades worth of equipment already lost either. The Russians have already been trying to mobilize/refit/resurrect their machine stockpiles as well, just to plug the current gaps. More bodies wouldn't be helping the offense, just the defense.
To which you might go 'that's the point,' to prevent the success of a Ukrainian counteroffensive, to which the Russian national-level strategist would be justified in asking 'what's the point of that point?' The results of the war doesn't depend on the Ukrainian counter-offensive, it depends on cutting off the European supply routes to Ukraine, and it has since about March of this year.
The Russian strategic gamble has been that they can break Western support for Ukraine, turning the conflict into one where Russian economic advantages vis-a-vis Ukraine matter. If this gamble succeeds, the Ukrainian offensive is irrelevant- it can just be rolled back later when Ukraine faces economic collapse without western aid, and western abandonment allows Russia it's free hand. If this gamble fails, the Ukraine counter-offensive is also irrelevant in that the Russian position was fundamentally doomed, as a 'victory' still relies on a conclusive end to the war, which the Ukrainians won't provide if they're still getting support.
At which point, at the national level, what is a general mobilization supposed to do that helps more than it hurts? It's not free manpower.
Economically, a general mobilization will further economic damages and pains, both taking current taxpayers out of the economy where they're doing necessary economic work to support the government's efforts to endure sanctions, and accelerating the ongoing demographic exodus as people currently apathetic about the war start looking for ways to avoid the draft. Politically, mass mobilization means that casualties go far beyond the current portion of the population that at least, in some sense, 'volunteered for it' and 'accepted the risks.' A core part of Putin's political power base is that people don't blame the Russian government for costs of the war- this often changes when the government forces family members to fight and die. Diplomatically, mass-mobilization also caries costs and risks: yes, the West can further escalate support, not just in equipment that is currently not being provided, including systems and capabilities that can range into Russia, but also in manpower. Russia is not the only country that can hire mercenaries, and if the issue of Ukrainian weakness actually becomes a manpower issue, there are sources available. There's literally millions of people trying to get into Europe, and the French Foreign Legion is more than a precedent, it has a Ukrainian counterpart.
If Russia is going to win, it's not going to hinge on the ability to defend and beat Ukrainian counter-offensives until they give up and stop fighting. The Ukrainians will just continue to accept western drones and precision munitions and keep blowing up Russian forces and material at range, and a Russian mobilization just raises the costs associated with it. Russian victory requires a political settlement, and breaking the will of the Western supporters as a prerequisite, and a general Russian mobilization is not going to make NATO's eastern front reduce supply lines through Poland to Ukrainian.
Dean
1yr ago
It wasn't immediately clear to me whether you were talking about the advisability for Russia of the removal of Putin or the suing for peace. Re: Putin, any deal that Russia could get with Putin still in place would be inferior to the kind of deal they could get with a successor in place. This is widely regarded in the West as "Putin's War", and while Russia will bear the bulk of perceived responsibility even if he goes, he will at least take some of it with him. As for the hunkering down option, that could be relatively palatable for Russia, but it's not clear it's going to be strategically sustainable if Ukraine continues to have operational victories and the West continues to pour weapons and money into the conflict.
The issue is that Putin doesn't take responsibility for the war in the Russian political context if he's ousted- whoever ousts him does. And it's the Russian political context which matters to Russian court politics, because who is going to depose Putin for the sake of being the ritual sacrifice as the one who's going to assume the responsibility of bearing the bad news? A palace coup comes with most of the negatives of the 'stabbed in the back' narratives, with the issue of it actually being true, regardless of whether the war was already being lost or not.
Russia, in aggregate, would probably be better off, but Russia, in aggregate, doesn't make decisions. Individual people make decisions, and they do so in their individual contexts and interests. Whose interests, specifically, are buoyed by couping Putin and not simply setting themselves up for the blame/follow-on coup?
Dean
1yr ago
Russia conducts a nuclear test in its own territory. Foreign policy types freak out, Ukraine shrugs, Russia continues losing.
Russia conducts a nuclear attack on Urkainian forces in Ukraine with an ultimatum for a cease fire. Foreign policy and serious military types freak out. Ukraine howls, Europeans increase sanctions, but also schism. A nominal cease fire might be started, but Russian demands for recognition of their demands schisms Europe as people who actually care about stable nuclear game theory recognize this is precisely the sort of demand you can't accede to for a stable nash equilibrium.
Nuclear-derived case fires will probably not hold, as 'I get to conquer you since I have nuclear weapons' is an extremely nuclear proliferation incentive beyond just Poland and other European powers. Conflict possibly transitions to an asymmetric conflict, but probably transitions into a conventional military artillery/UAV duel with drone exchanges as low-altitude drones become the 'plausible deniable' weapon of choice while SOF work.
Dean
1yr ago
Yes? And? What else? That's not exactly a worst-case scenario you're describing.
Manpower and equipment are already being lost even in a successful advance- either the categorical loss of something is bad enough to matter, or you need relevant context of what sort of losses are unacceptable. You could make an argument about moral, but you're not comparing it to anything else. Is this supposed to be lower than if there were no over-extended offensive in the first place? What difference is this supposed to make that warrants a comparison to the Germans at Bastogne?
If morale is the only categorical negative , we can just point at Ukrainian propaganda, say it raises morale, and call it net even.
Dean
1yr ago
It's not like Russia would be threatening them, so 'not like' has nothing to do with 'backing down.'
This is one of those cases where Europe is not 'the world,' and conflation will make the general conflict apathy seem surprising when 'the world's' preference is not getting caught in a nuclear exchange more than the security structure of Europe.
Russian mobilization wouldn't do much in the short term and it'd do more damage economically and politically in the long term, but in the medium term it's still Russia's best option. The Russian army isn't a spent force by any means. Just look at their defense of Kherson, which has made the Ukrainians bleed severely without much to show for it.
What the Ukrainians have to show for it is not only Kharkiv, where the Russians have lost in days what took them months to conquer when they had their best gear rather than losing it in retreat, but the fact that the Russians in Kherson are in an untenable position of being supplied across a river whose bridges are in artillery range. They can't build up for a breakout, they can't retreat, they're stuck and in an awful position prone to attrition. The Ukrainians don't need to 'show anything' to be winning the Kherson exchange, even setting aside a lack of reliable data to indicate they are 'bleeding severely.'
Diplomatically, mobilization would up the ante and force the West to send even more money and weapons if they want to keep Ukraine in the fight. That's the best chance for Russia to break Western unity especially as gas shortages come to the fore in the winter.
The West is already sending the Ukrainians money and weapons surpassing the annual Russian budget, and unlike the Russian budget it's been far more tailored to the war in Ukraine. Western aid isn't required to keep Ukraine in the fight anymore- they'll keep fighting regardless. Western aid is required to keep Ukraine on the offensive, but a stalemate doesn't imply a Ukrainian surrender.
If Western unity breaks, it doesn't mean that the West stops supplying Ukraine for that, because the West hasn't been united in degrees of support to Ukraine in the first place. 'Western unity' is, and has been, a mirage of different western countries doing different sorts of support. The decisive sorts of support for military resiliance haven't been coming from the countries who will be most affected, and thanks to Russian gas strategy a change of government doesn't re-open the gas network because the gas has to go through... Ukraine.
I'm not saying any of this is guaranteed to happen nor would a mobilization guarantee Russia to "win" in any sense, but it's really their only option to stabilize things without using nukes. The Kharkov push has been a sizeable morale + propaganda win for Ukraine and has signaled to the West that the war can be won beyond a Korea-style stalemate, so there's no reason to stop supporting Ukraine. Russia needs to prevent things like this from happening again if it wants to achieve any of its objectives including breaking Western unity, otherwise it's going to just lose conventionally sometime in 2023 unless Ukraine makes a massive blunder somewhere.
It'll still lose conventionally if it does a general mobilization, just sometime in later 2024, because they don't have the hardware superiority anymore to support infantry maneuver. Advance in areas of extremely favorable numbers and allocation of forces already required a concentration of artillery, armor, and airpower that won't be available to support the mobilized forces, because the hardware isn't going to be generated by mobilizing. The Russians need to win conventionally for a military mobilization to matter.
Nor would nukes stabilize the situation, because the situation is not constrained to Ukraine. A nuclear ultimatum for capitulation to surrender and national subjugation on nuclear grounds is incredibly destabilizing for regional nuclear proliferation, and that is far more dangerous to Russia than actually losing the war in Ukraine.
Dean
1yr ago
A meaningful shared definition of AGI would help.
The nature of seminal moments and paradigm shifts is that there are clear 'before' and 'after' periods that are indisputable. However, these are only indisputable in retrospect, as before hand people project their own biases/fancies on what a paradigm will be, which rarely relates to what it is. In retrospect, people will probably treat AGI-ers like we look back to the sort of cold war sci-fi that thought the future would be hover cars and atomic power everywhere. Yes, the atomic age was paradigm shift, but neither due to its apocalyptic prophets or its utopians.
There is no good reason for power to still be on in Ukraine, they have a great deal of ballistic and cruise missiles that could be striking power infrastructure. During the Iraq War the US intensively bombed Iraq's infrastructure until electricity output was at 4% of pre-war levels.
The US also was pretty clear about it's intent to rebuild it, and this was at a time when cyberweapons weren't available that could achieve similar effects. As the joke went before Iraq, the best way to American investment was to declare war on America.
The good reason for the Russians not to go after Ukrainian power power generation is because it's very easy for someone else to give the Ukrainians the means to go after Russian power generation, both directly or via cyber attacks. This is a similar parallel to why the Russians did not destroy the oil pipelines going through Ukraine and instead have kept paying oil transit revenues through the war- because if they destroy Ukrainian pipelines, it's not very hard for someone to give Ukraine the ability to do so to Russian pipelines.
To paraphrase a different war, it would be a very naive belief to hold that the attacker will be the only one attack the other party's cities, and that the defender will not do the same if they have the ability to. The reason Ukraine has largely limited its engagements in Russia has been of western concerns of escalation driving Russian mobilization. If Russia mobilizes and escalates the war instead of taking a loss, the western concerns limiting Ukrainian operational freedom be undermined as well since what they ward against- Russian mobilizing- is already occuring.
Can they? I think they can't actually mobilize all those men. And if they could, they'd just be turning them into cannon fodder.
They can force conscript, if Putin's willing to pay the costs he's gone to significant expense to avoid to date, but a major issue is that the Russians already cannibalized their mobilization and training infrastructure. The units whose job it is/would be to train new arrivals have already had their cadres raided to fill in at places like Kherson, and some reports of mobilized reservist training are of 1 week refresher before going to the front.
So, yes, probably cannon fodder, especially as the systems they would be meant to give mass to- and which in turn force-multiply them- have been extremely degraded, and the Russian supply system hasn't fixed its fundamental dependence on rail.
Ancient equipment which hasn't been maintained and quite possibly exists only on paper (long since sold for scrap to feather someone's nest) isn't going to help them
The crux of mobilization is that it would have been far more effective far earlier, when Russia still had its higher-tech precision strike capabilities and hadn't lost modernized tanks number in the multiple european nations. Even if mothball reserves still exist /work / get refurbished, they're at this point to replace superior equipment that already failed, even as Ukrainian capabilities have grown.
The Germans are of course idiots, but it's hard to see how Russia is benefiting.
The argument generally rests on Russia's record oil import dollars from the energy price jump, while ignoring different metrics like the GDP slump or impacts to various non-oil industries like the airline sector (uh, not good) or vehicle manufacturing (97% car production decline in May 22 compared to May 21), on top of the implications of hundreds of thousands range of emmigration.
The general argument is that thanks to the fuck-off money the other impacts don't matter, and that the Europeans will cave and go back to buying Russian gas long-term instead of completing the gas import terminal projects, thus giving Russia a bumper crop of energy sales instead of functionally increasing the room temperature by burning down the house.
International supply chains will not collapse over Russia and Ukraine.
Supply chains no, food chains maybe, but the assumption to be challenged is why Assad would be stable in a food-insecure region, and how insecurity in the middle east actually benefits Russia beyond 'oil price stronk' arguments that resolve economic health to oil prices and assumptions that the US response to a Middle Eastern humanitarian crisis won't be to just sell the oil-rich countries more food at higher prices.
Today, Russia holds escalation dominance over Ukraine. Even if the Ukrainians hit back as hard as they can, unless we're giving them a full nuclear triad the Russians can hit harder. At lower escalation levels the Russians can also hit harder, since Ukraine is a smaller country with a smaller number of targets and a smaller arsenal.
Escalation dominance is, of course, why the Ukrainians have not raised their capabilities to resist since the war started, because escalation dominance prevents retaliation at lower levels.
Alternatively, escalation dominance theory runs into the reality of deterrence, which works when the opponent's capacity to retaliate is enough that even though you could hit back harder, it doesn't matter because you don't want to be hit in that way in that context, and that overwhelming annihalative capacity doesn't actual deter people from fighting back if you attack them, and that people will often fight back in kind.
Russia's ability to nuke Ukraine harder than Ukraine can nuke Russia is irrelevant to the reasons why Russia wouldn't want to do something that could be done back to them if they did so. Nukes do not stop Ukrainian from counter-artillery fire, nor do they magically prevent Ukraine from retaliating in kind in other ways.
Furthermore, is it really wise for the West to be blowing up Russian pipelines during a global energy crisis? That fuel is going somewhere. Removing it from circulation will reduce global supply.
Okay. In other news, water is wet. It still doesn't change that were Russia to knock out Ukrainian energy infrastructure, other people would happily help the Ukrainians do it back to the Russians. The Europeans can afford it, the Americans will profit from it, and the Poles would probably do it even if they couldn't afford or profit from it.
Dean
1yr ago
reducing risk of getting again invaded by Russia is worth a lot.
Sure. So is deterring the Russians from knocking out your energy generation by targetting theirs. Note that you are increasingly far from the claims of escalation dominance being relevant in negating deterrence.
Dean
1yr ago
Military usefulness; nil. Maybe delays logistics for a couple of hours.
How to tell someone is not not a military analyst without them telling they are not a military analyst.
Dean
1yr ago
Any arguments that now the border-crossers are going to be mobilization dodgers are just going to be met with newly-minted claims that since Putin and Shoigu implied that it's West that Russia is at war with, young Russian males crossing the border might just be destabilization agents and a danger to Finland.
There's a further issue, which I didn't see mentioned here, of being a long-term casus belli by Putin or similar russian nationalists.
Putin has repeatedly used ethnic russians as pretexts to intervene, or threaten intervention, around the region. Much of the pre-February rhetoric from Moscow on multiple fronts could be leveraged against Russia's more northern neighbors, which was one of the reasons Europe reacted as strongly as it did when Putin followed through with his threats with actual invasion. Just from this angle, significantly increasing the Russian national population in the border states- who are almost certainly going to locate themselves to the ethnic russian enclaves- strengthens an ethnic-based framing of a future pre-conflict narrative.
Further, there's also a point about what sort of Russians would be coming to reside in Finland/border states. Before this week, you could at least make an argument that these people were the minority of Russians who actively opposed the war, and were signalling their sincerity by leaving at cost to themselves. But these were the exceptions for a reason- among which being that most Russians, apolitical nationalist as they were, maintained high approval polling of Russian nationalist incursions in the region without issue, ie the potential threat against Finland or others... up unto the moment it potentially involved them.
If you work from the general assessment that Putin's approval numbers are genuinely high and representative of Russian people, and that these new would-be migrants are representative, they're drawing from the same overlapping ven diagram. These are not anti-imperialists who were committing to not associating with imperialism at personal cost, these are drawing from passively supportive imperialists who are only not associating with imperialism because it risks a personal cost... and who, if safe from that cost, have no history/credibility that they won't just go right back to vaguely supporting russian imperialism, only from inside the border territories where they could serve as a casus belli.
Is it a generalization? Sure. But it nests on real security threats (Putin using Russian ethnic ties as a basis for unprovoked war), and with a presumed- and at least not disproven- demographic overlap of the very target audience who have been passively supporting such revaunchism through political support so long as the nationalist element didn't harm them.
Now, one could make an argument that this compliant and low-pain tolerance is why they should be accepted- that they wouldn't be willing to tolerate social pressure opposing their nationalism- but this is where we go back to where they would likely go (existing or new Russian enclaves), what they could do wittingly or unwittingly (be sanctuary/support for Russian destabilization efforts), and whether they'd default back to Russian nationalism if social pressure from non-Russian social pressure targetted them.
Dean
1yr ago
Pretty much, only instead of needing a majority dynamic (the issue of California idea exports wouldn't matter much if most Californians fleeing didn't share them), the nature of security threats is that they're disproportionate in impact to their population number. Even just a 5% over Russian sympathizer rate would be a major pool for Russian influence operations to be run from, and through.
Dean
1yr ago
The pro-war thesis is that Russia is bombing Russian-speaking cities because they're held by anti-Russian oppressors, oh and that it's the anti-Russian nazis who are doing the worst bombing anyway.
The counterpoint to 'propaganda doesn't matters' is that the Russians expend significant amounts of time, resources, and center much of their international diplomatic strategy around it. They seem to think it matters, and the Russians will base their decisions on what they think is important, not what you think is a non-issue.
Dean
1yr ago
This looks like another serving of your isolated rigor. Not so long ago you jeered about Russian incapability to respond to possible blockade of Kaliningrad due to exhaustion of troops and materiel, especially in the region; now you mention the threat of draft dodgers (drafted, to begin with, due to further exhaustion) becoming an «oppressed minority» pretext for invasion (of a soon to be NATO country). Which army will be doing that?
A future army, because this is a future-threat consideration.
Now, you might disagree with me on the prospect of Russian re-armament post-war, but this is a subject that explains your perceived inconsistency.
(Unless we really wish to get semantic on my isolated rigor, as the topics I discuss are isolated by nature.)
And army of which state, seeing as Russia isn't likely to survive this?
I also disagree on this, though with the caveat that if Russia were to fracture, I can easily sketch out scenarios that could manifest in our lifetime in which the US-European alliance fractures for a lack of Russia, the inter-European alliance fractures as a result of a lack of common position on how to deal with a broken Russia, and that a balkanized Russia with nukes could see interests in destabilizing neighboring European nations as fractured Europe and fractured Russia interact.
So how exactly do they change incentives for another invasion? Will this framing be recognized as legitimate by any party of interest, after Ukraine? Certainly not, unless long COVID makes us all unable to form long-term memories.
Which 'they'? The Russians, or the Finns?
'No change' is not an improvement for the Finns, because the Russian nationalist paradigm was willing to accept the Ukrainian invasion basis as legitimate. To this date, there's been no Russian cultural turn against the basis of the Ukraine war, only the lack of a successful execution.
Is an invasion likely to be assisted from within by those who noped out of the current round of imperialist adventurism? I don't think so.
Not to put too fine a point on it, Ilforte, but less than a year ago you didn't think there was any chance that Russians would wage war on Ukrainians, and lectured me that I would never understand Russians or the region.
I'm going to advance another difference in world views: I do not believe the Russians who are noping out of the current round of imperialist adventurism oppose Russian imperialism in principle, as much as a personal skin-in-the-game that only applies so long as they do have skin in the game and can't go back to being mostly apolitical passive supporters, and I do not believe that migrants renounce everything about their origins even when they flee, let alone views that are odious to their new neighbors of choice.
Intra-American state, inter-EU migration, and inter-continental migration trends of the last decades do not support the later. The fact that the most recent Russian nopers are leaving now, and not a week ago, supports the later.
Will this pretext be recognized as less far-fetched than one relying on already-present Russian minorities who are clear civilians and not draft-dodgers? That's 1/4th of Latvian population, by the way. It will not. (From what I can tell, many of those Latvian Russians are USSR nostalgists, despise their host country and their disenfranchisement/deportation would be prudent, and same for their ilk in other countries; but this is another issue, and their genesis is different too)
It's not another issue, it's an extension and continuation of the same issue- a unloyal minority that approaches their host country from the perspective of cultural chauvenism and nostalgia for the external imperial oppressor. If this sounds at all familiar to the current Russian president who has had high support from the Russian public- from which these new migrants are coming- this is probably because Putin's support base is composed of, and has been cultivating, the same.
If one views the demographic issue as a problem, making the problem bigger does not make the problem better.
Anyway, I have one idea about precluding this scenario: don't give them citizenship or long-term permits. (Nobody intended to, of course.) And needless to say they could be kicked out once the war is over.
Except they wouldn't, because the modern Europeans don't have the same attitude towards ethnic cleansing from claimed sovereign territory as the modern Russians, even self-exiled ones.
Worse from the present-decision maker perception, even if they were inclined to do so (say that you are right and I am wrong), they might not be able to muster a political coalition to do so if more Russians are let in, as a new population inflow entails new economic interests that, once entrenched, are harder to expunge than to prevent forming in the first place.
Adjudicating their morality and stance on the war can be done on a more or less effortful case-by-case basis. Few of them will be ideological peaceniks willing to emigrate at personal cost just to protest etc., but few people ever deviate from vague my-country-right-or-wrong and my-family-comes-first mentality. Hopefully Europeans can tell a gopnik who pissed his imperial pants once asked to walk the walk from an autistic guy who's been learning Portuguese and Leetcoding the last six months (such as a few of my pals left behind); a 15-minute pen and paper test could suffice.
Alternatively, they could not make new case-by-case beuracratic systems for unknown thousands of potential applicants whose approval would make their domestic ethno-demographic instability functions worse for the sake of people who until last week were supportive of Russian imperialist revaunchism.
More importantly, this isn't only about them and their would-be hosts. All of them are non-combatants for now. In case of Europeans proceeding to assist the mobilization, they are getting drafted and sent down South as reinforcements.
No, not more importantly. The Russian emmigrees are the less important part of this balance of concerns.
The most important consideration of Russian migration to other nations isn't the Russian status as non-combatants, it's whether the other states give sovereign permission. Russians do not have an inherent right to freely migrate to neighboring countries and set up new lives amongst the Finns and the Balts or the Ukrainians or anywhere else at will. Ethnic russian migration interests do not pre-empt the interests, or sovereignty, of their non-Russian neighbors.
And if this is grand strategy, it's one you tactfully decided not to bring up: safer for Finns and Balts to have them die killing Ukrainians.
Well, yes, the Finns and the Balts governments are making decisions to prioritize their own safety. Why shouldn't they?
The responsibility of a nation is to its people, a state to its citizens, and a democracy to its voters. Ukrainians are none of these in the Baltize area. Neither are Russians.
You treat this as some betrayal of some broader solidarity, but there is none to be betrayed. The Russian nation demonstrated that, with the general approval of many who are now seeking to flee.
Dean
1yr ago
This is barely responsive to my post. Which I suppose happens when one's argument is shown to be without merit and there's no incentive to admit as much.
Since my point began with that you misremembered my position, which de-merited your argument, I suppose this is a nice admission on your part without having to admit it.
I dismiss this, because a) in no realistic event can those Russians hope to get long-term residence in Finland or Latvia and b) nobody there is even arguing that this is a risk, instead complaining about being a transit country or that Russians have to take responsibility or some such.
Your dismissal is irrelevant, because you are not a Finn or Baltic country citizen whose perspective and endorsement is the source of legitimacy for border policy.
Why Finns, how could that fit the context? Those little miscommunications are a repeating pattern with you, and they are very telling.
Hopefully they tell you what I've repeatedly raised, which is that you occasionally use ambiguous conjugation and references that can be interpreted in different ways. This is a common translation issue of non-native speakers, and in your case regularly comes in the direction of intent when discussing multiple subjects that you treat with similar tone.
When I face confusion with your language, I raise that there is a question, go from the context I believe fit in the broader theme (objection to the Finns/Baltics), and work with that. I've no particular objection to dropping anything based on a mis-translation.
Not to put too fine a point on it, Ilforte, but less than a year ago you didn't think there was any chance that Russians would wage war on Ukrainians
Are you really one to talk so smugly of this, given that your specific explanations for the Russian military buildup (forcing the NS2 issue or something) didn't differ much from mine and also implied no war?
Yes, since that [or something] carries quite a lot of ground, ground which has stood well enough since to not but at the time earned me a lecture from you about how I would never understand Slaavic brotherhood and how much it mattered.
Now, I may not share your sense of collective ethnic responsibility, but I think that my lack of sense of collective ethnic responsibility was not only vindicated since late February, but continues to be validated now, given how the other Slaavic brotherhood regions reject such premise ethnic collective solidarity. You wrote one of your best works as a self-analysis of how your world view was undermined and fundamentally shifted by the start of the war. By contrast, I've felt generally vindicated in my understanding of how other people in the region view Russia.
So yes, I believe I am possibly the best person to talk so smugly of this to you, since this has continuity with how I talked about it before. I do not defer to your interpretation of the reasonableness or rationality of Russia's neighbors and their views of Russia.
This gave me a pause. Perhaps we have differences in worldview regarding what constitutes ethnic cleansing, too? Wiki sounds about right: «Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous». I don't know man, this doesn't sound like, um, issuing short-term residence permits or erecting refugee camps for draft dodgers from a multinational neighboring state.
This would be indeed a difference in attitude, because the European/North American norm is that in practice there is no such thing in practice as a short-term refugee permit and that ejecting refugees by force is verboten. Categorically, once an ethnic, racial, or religious group (Russians) are located in a given area (the state), especially one where the minority already exists (local ethnic russians), ejecting them out would make the region (the state) more ethnically homogenous (less Russian). This would, by European standards, be easily legally suspect for anyone willing to finance a lawsuite (such as interested Russians), even without considering the other fact of European law on the right to asylum, the request almost any given Russian arrival would make once on the states.
European humanitarian law basically follows that to expel someone who has tried to claim asylum, there must be someone willing to accept them who won't put them back in danger, or ship them back to the home country. In this case, you have not answered 'who' or 'where' the Europeans would expel the Russian draft dodgers back to.
I realize you've raised in the past the idea of Russian coders being a high value to European countries, but the question of the rest would remain the problem under the first-point-of-arrival policy that Europe implemented to deal with African migrants, and thus the border state's problems.
In any case, if Europeans do not believe in ethnic cleansing, like you assert, they might not believe in collective ethnic responsibility like you do, either.
Them not believing in collective ethnic responsiblity is rather the point. They do not believe they are collectively responsible for, or to, ethnic russians collectively.
Right, thanks. Admittedly I suspected this will be how you'll read it, which is why I wrote it ambiguously like this, and I know this isn't my broken English but your blinding, zoological ethnic prejudice
I reject your characterization of zoological or ethnic prejudice in this matter of describing other people's security perspectives. I may find the modern Russian state morally bankrupt, and the modern Russian culture generally uninteresting in it's acceptance of it, but I never deny the Russian humanity or that the Russians are the second biggest losers of Ukraine.
that predictably determined this queer reading. Pease spare me more snark; few things could be funnier than what you're doing here on reflex, condescendingly explaining sovereignty to an imagined petulant Imperialist who asserts such a right to freely immigrate and colonize. (I don't believe in the usefulness of the doctrine of rights at all, in any case – at the bedrock, there are only interests and capabilities).
Since you find it amusing, and I'm sure you didn't accidentally reverse your adjectives again, I'll increase your levity. I believe you're a cultural chauvenist, not an imperialist, and have pointed others to your writings with that distinction.
My claim here was that the subset of Russian males attempting escape and not posing current military threat will, in the case of being turned back, be mobilized for war (primarily in Ukraine), reinforcing Russian forces that are currently attempting annexation of parts of Ukraine. Which is, indeed, from the official European point of view, somewhat bad and more important than welfare of those males, '
This I don't generally disagree with.
and (I argue) more important than special pleading about ethnic blocs of the far future, weird definitions of ethnic cleansing, low moral qualities of all ruskies who leave home when staying becomes immediately life-threatening, and other 300 IQ bullshit.
And this I note other states reject, as past examples of future ethnic blocks (Russification policy effects and migration waves), weird definitions of ethnic cleansing (ones that currently serve as war justification), and low moral qualities of ruskies (such as those who supported Putin when it was cost-free) leaving home (trying to enter other countries without permission) is exactly how they- and we- have reached this current position.
Repeating steps that brought them to the present widens the chance of it reoccuring in the future. They do not view it as them having an obligation to Ukraine to host Russian refugee camps under international laws and agreements tailored for Africans. They will reject it, and send the Ukrainians more aid to make up the difference of the Russian manpower.
And of course they're under no obligation to spell it out. Because there is a pretension of broader solidarity, and it's convenient in many ways.
I don't believe they've made any pretension about being a good place for a Russian refugee column. Quite the opposite.
Dean
1yr ago
I am personally undecided what balance of EU-beuracratic following of American progressivism is an artifact of American cultural influence versus federalist designs. Eurocrats absolutely have their own sort of internal messaging programs and strategies to try and build public support, but while one part of that is pro-Europe, another is the teardown of prior loyalties, especially nationalist inclinations. Identity-politics as framed by the US- white versus black- is a meaningful alternative framing to European 'identities,' as it homogenizes European diversity into a collective that the EU can claim to represent as Europeans, as opposed to national identities that object to EU-centralization on national grounds.
For the lack of / failure to create a European nationalism despite significant effort, diluting the rest works almost as well.
Dean
1yr ago
so unless you have some asymmetrical concept of a civilized political conversation, this can't be the case.
Alternatively, they could have an asymmetrical concept of partisan polarization.
Dean
1yr ago
By what you just said, Islam is also a democratically decided issue- and the demos inclination is that it's uninterested to having a debate on changing its current status.
'Issue is democratically decided' =/= 'Democratic electorate is interested in changing issue' or 'Issue is currently in contention.'
Dean
1yr ago
Yeah, that 350 feet deep point raised an eyebrow to me too. That's not exactly a restricted naval zone either.
Dean
1yr ago
I am offended on France's behalf. Does no one remember Rainbow Warrior?
If you *really *want to get conspiratorial on the 'who benefits most' narrative, the US being the obvious target for blame that might harm regional influence, but the Russians and the Germans both sucking it, would give greatest benefit to whoever would benefit most from being the mix of most capable but least maligned in the EU for European influence.
It is a direct pipeline between Russia and Germany. I would expect Russian and German sovereign governments to have the final say about what happens with it.
And Germany did have the final say. Their say was 'no,' despite much internal twisting, in part because many Germans recognize that Germany has far more interests, economic and political, than a Russian pipeline that was going to be vulnerable to sabotage in the midst of a war where the Russians are trying to use energy supplies as a weapon to break European solidarity and the alliance.
After all we are fighting the war in Ukraine because we care about the world order with sovereign states right?
Which 'we' here? Many would argue the Germans are not fighting the war, and that the German government has been trying to get out of even supporting the war beyond bare minimum expectations of its public and diplomatic partners. (IE, the helmet fiasco.)
That is certainly a sovereign state's right, but sovereign states can also be pressued by the opinion of other sovereign states. Sovereignty is not an opinion-free zone, and if you care about other people's opinion for your own sovereign interests- such as not being alone and losing influence within your own economic block- it is your sovereign right to weigh those opinions and pressures accordingly.
Anyway. Now very conveniently nobody has anything to say about the pipelines anymore.
Quite convenient for the German government, in its own way, as now they don't have to treat the prospect of a Nord Stream 2 start as a serious option at international political cost, and can avoid the domestic political cost of rejecting it.
Bastogne was a disaster for the Germans because not only did their offensive fail, but the western allies had mobile armies able to exploit the defeat to advance. The Ukrainian offensive in the north has succeeded as well as it has precisely because the Russians lacked reserves to contest with a counter-offensive, while in the South the issue is that the Russian ability to advance across the river was limited by bridges in Ukrainian artillery range. If the Ukrainians over-extend in the north, they stop advancing and keep considerable gains. If the Ukrainians overextend to the south, they... still have the bridgeheads in artillery range.
What, exactly, do you think the worst case of over-extension is supposed to be?
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