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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   35350 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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/r/stupidpol is abuzz with news of both NordStream pipelines being damaged, in what mainstream sources openly speculate to be an attack:

Massive drop in pressure – Nord Stream 2 pipeline apparently partially destroyed

There was an incident on the Russian Baltic Sea pipeline, as confirmed by the Danish shipping authority. The operator Gascade speaks of a sharp drop in pressure in the tube. An accident is considered unlikely. The timing of the accident suggests sabotage.

Stupidpol being stupidpol, blames it all on the west (either the US or UK)... but it feels like the kind of have a point? Russian performance in the war doesn't exactly scream competence, so it would be surprising, if they pulled something like this off, so deep in NATOs turf.

When we were discussing the coming winter, some people were saying "the European gas storage is filled up, it'll be fine", but isn't the gas storage more like a buffer, designed to take advantage of the decreased demand over the summer, to even out the increased demand in winter, working on the assumption that there will still be a constant supply of gas coming in? Does this change the calculus at all?

This is obviously an American op. The Poles know:

https://twitter.com/radeksikorski/status/1574800653724966915

Biden made the threat:

https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1490791554088321024

The Scandies say it was explosives:

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/mystery-gas-leaks-hit-major-russian-undersea-gas-pipelines-europe-2022-09-27/

Seismologists in Denmark and Sweden said they had registered two powerful blasts on Monday in the vicinity of the leaks.

"The signals do not resemble signals from earthquakes. They do resemble the signals typically recorded from blasts," the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) said.

And seismologists at Sweden's Uppsala University, which cooperates with GEUS, said the second, bigger explosion "corresponded to more than 100 kilos (kg) of dynamite", adding the blasts were in the water not under the seabed.

And best of all, the US had mine-planting/explosives forces right on Bornholm island in June! The bombs we're talking about detonated just off the coast of Bornholm island!

https://seapowermagazine.org/baltops-22-a-perfect-opportunity-for-research-and-resting-new-technology/

In support of BALTOPS, U.S. Navy 6th Fleet partnered with U.S. Navy research and warfare centers to bring the latest advancements in unmanned underwater vehicle mine hunting technology to the Baltic Sea to demonstrate the vehicle’s effectiveness in operational scenarios.

Experimentation was conducted off the coast of Bornholm, Denmark, with participants from Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, Naval Undersea Warfare Center Newport, and Mine Warfare Readiness and Effectiveness Measuring

How much more clear could it be? A few mines were left behind.

With friends like America, Europe doesn't need enemies. The US-initiated war on terror got them targeted for terrorist attacks. The US destabilization of Syria and Libya got them a flood of refugees. Yes, the Europeans were partially complicit in these foreign adventures but they were really just being dragged along. The Prime Mover was Washington. When NATO made that fateful statement that Ukraine and Georgia would one day join the alliance, the French and Germans were trying to tone it down. They didn't want to antagonize Russia. Thanks to the US, Western Europe has been pushed into a proxy war against their energy supplier. Now, the US is making sure Russia can't supply Germany with energy, that it will be dependent upon US puppet states in the Middle East or expensive fuel from America directly.

I don't even think this is a wise strategy for American interests. If you try to weaken your allies so they can't form a viable bloc to oppose you, you're antagonizing them. You're giving them a reason to oppose you and sabotage you. Why should the US expect much help from Europe on the main front against China in the Pacific? 'You're fighting your main industrial supplier? Tough - we'll sell you some overpriced goods. Good luck!'

Thanks to the US, Western Europe has been pushed into a proxy war against their energy supplier.

No this is still very much thanks to Russia, the US may benefit from this, but Russia chose to launch this utterly idiotic and needless invasion in the first place.

But for the encroachment, coup, and 8 years of shelling rebel oblasts, the invasion probably wouldn't have happened.

Like most wars, this one is not mono-causal. We can certainly blame Hitler for invading the Sudetenland, but we can also blame the Allies for creating the conditions that would lead the Germans to rally behind a strongman.

But for the encroachment, coup, and 8 years of shelling rebel oblasts, the invasion probably wouldn't have happened.

Like most wars, this one is not mono-causal

This one absolutely is, it stems entirely from a Russian inability to face reality and accept that it is no longer a great power and that Ukraine is no longer inside its orbit. If Russia was serious about the whole "multi-polar world" thing they would have recognised that their best bet was becoming part of Europe, instead they launched a war that will impoverish Russia and Europe, strengthening China and the US.

You think that Russia would've invaded Ukraine in Feb 2022 if Yanukovych had never been deposed?

Why would they bother?

Without the coup, there would have been no rebel oblasts. With those oblasts continuing to participate in elections there probably would have been no government elected that would seriously entertain the idea that Ukraine join an anti-Russian military alliance.

On Russia and Europe: Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin have all floated the idea of Russia joining NATO. No one in NATO has ever appeared to like that idea, with American Presidents and Secretaries of State dismissing it. It was the Americans that pledged there would be no NATO expansion into former Soviet states after the fall of the Soviet Union, "not one inch eastward." That was obviously a pledge broken, and not even in response to any Russian hostilities.

I'm American and I can't make any sense of our foreign policy strategy in regards to Russia. It all seems like dick-waving with potential nuclear consequences. What do we even get if we "win?"

The Soviets talked about joining NATO as early as around the time of its foundation. Their idea though was to either exclude the US from NATO or to require unanimous agreement for any NATO action, either way gutting NATO.

Putin did indeed at one point talk about joining NATO. He asked when they would be invited to NATO. Was told that it didn't work that way that countries applied to join. Then Putin said "Well, we’re not standing in line with a lot of countries that don’t matter.’”

In addition to not wanting to follow the process, I'm not sure Russia would really want to be in an alliance where another country was the dominate member (Russia would be 2nd in population, and military strength, 3rd in PPP GDP, and 7th in nominal GDP).

And I'm not so sure it would have qualified for membership -

While there is no membership checklist for interested nations, NATO has made clear that candidates for membership must meet the following criteria. Interested nations must:

Uphold democracy, including tolerance for diversity;

Be progressing toward a market economy;

Have their military forces under firm civilian control;

Be good neighbors and respect the sovereignty of other nations; and

Work toward interoperability with NATO forces.

https://1997-2001.state.gov/regions/eur/fs_970815members.html

The first and 2nd to last points have been questionable at best for years and has become more so lately. And I'm not sure Russian leadership would care to change the way their military operates to fit with the last point.

Uphold democracy, including tolerance for diversity;

Be good neighbors and respect the sovereignty of other nations

It's a relief to know Ukraine and the United States will never join NATO.

Some sort of argument can be made about the US. I don't think its as strong as the people normally making the argument would claim, but on respecting sovereignty it isn't nonsense, there is a real argument there. Less so on the democracy question.

Ukraine? Maybe its just because they haven't had a lot of time or a lot of power as an independent country but they haven't done much in the way of infringing on anyone's sovereignty. As for democracy they are far more democratic than Russia, corrupt maybe but a solid democracy, at least until after they were invaded and large sections of their country occupied by a foreign power (when they outlawed pro-Russian parties as traitorous)

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