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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34597 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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I just find it hard to take fear over self preservation seriously when the guy has a fleet of nuclear armed submarines. The fear is not that NATO tanks will roll through Ukraine and try to partition Russia, that would obviously end in global Armageddon and so will never happen. The fear is that Russia will not be able to determine the internal politics of neighbor former SSR's.

This is a predictable fear, states would rather be stronger than weaker, if Russia can boss around their neighbors they would like to continue doing that. NATO is a threat to reduce Russia from regional hegemon to irrelevancy and the EU/NATO bears responsibility in the sense that Russian aggression against it's neighbors was a predictable outcome of offering Ukraine self determination. But Russia bears responsibility in the moral sense because resolving to control your neighbors trade policies when you have less GDP than Brazil or Italy means you're going to have to resort to force or skullduggery because you can't compete economically.

IIRC the stated fear was actually the positioning of nuclear interdiction systems in Poland, which could convince Americans that they'd be able to launch a nuclear first strike without fear of retaliation. Those US leaders would be wrong to think that and wrong to even start going down that road, but they've put out a few white-papers on the subject, and by actually putting those ideas out into the world they have given Putin an iron-clad motivation for the war in Ukraine.

I just find it hard to take fear over self preservation seriously when the guy has a fleet of nuclear armed submarines.

Would the US of A get uneasy if China starts forming military partnerships with Mexico or Canada?

In my personal opinion, I don't think Putin was worried about NATO invasion. But being rejected a seat at the table and not having your concerns heard time and time again would probably induce some paranoia.

But Russia bears responsibility in the moral sense because resolving to control your neighbors trade policies when you have less GDP than Brazil or Italy means you're going to have to resort to force or skullduggery because you can't compete economically.

Don't think morals and world politics fit together. Overall, this is a correct statement. Not applicable to Ukraine though. In 2013, the EU deal Ukraine was offered (and which was rightfully rejected) was downright disrespectful. Russia's terms included trade agreements and cold hard cash amounts Ukraine couldn't even think of getting from EU at the time. So the carrot attempts were attempted before the stick came out. Didn't prevent Maidan from happening though.

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