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Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
- Thread starter Wednesday at Stoke
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Is it a good idea to cross the border?
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I'd be wary of this Visegrad source to be honest.
It's not a good idea to go into mainland Russia. Its not at all good. Even if some encirclement maneuver would be most efficient that way.
It's sensible to evacuate the area close to the fight. Even if the actual fight only happens on Ukrainian soil bullets still fly some way etc.
This is one of the main reasons why AFU will need to keep capturing territories as much and fast as they can now, despite the concerns with overcommitting. It will have negative effects on the Russian troops as well.
Anybody checked in on @DT12 since this counter offensive began?
All true. But if they can continue to vacuum up Russian munitions without being ensnared or caught woefully thin it might be worth it to keep going for a bit.
I'm not sure if there are actually any cases for treason opened on the account of soldiers refusing to go to Ukraine (judicially they have every right to since it's legally not a war) but there are a lot of cases where officers threaten soldiers with jail if they won't go, they conveniently lose rapports where those soldiers ask for their contract to be terminated (which they have every right to ask for) etc. But if you know your rights and aren't easily intimidated or peer-pressured, you can refuse to go — sadly, not many soldiers fit these criteria. You can get a childish stamp in your military ID that says that you're a traitor and a coward but that's about it, I believe.
The worst case scenario are those soldiers who went to Ukraine & then tried to leave after seeing what's going on — and I'm not talking about literal deserters, I'm talking about those who went through official channels (again, they have every right to void their contract at any moment given that it's not a war). There are special prisons for those like the one in Luhanskaya oblast' near Bryank (so it's not bound by any Russian laws) where they are imprisoned and tortured by mercenaries from Wagner for daring to exercise their right.
Spare a thought for the disciples of Mearshimer and the whataboutism posse in the geopolitics thread.
It’s true, there was a really hurtful note on Hunter’s laptop that gave Putin no option other than to attack Ukraine. Dictator’s have feelings too!
???????????????????
@massi83 was this sarcasm, question?
Haven’t heard much from those laughing at the suggestion of the Russian army collapsing around the end of the summer. And it seems…*checks notes…we are in the range of the end of summer.
Of course but even with the Russian use of the word Nazi to mean just anti-Russian it's still nonsense. Even if it were true that the majority of Ukranians are anti-Russian I hardly think invading their country, killing and/or displacing millions of their people, destroying their country while committing multiple war crimes is justified or going to make them any less anti-Russian.
You have to give Russia a sphere of influence within which they can commit any crime in anyone’s land, because reasons.
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Indeed. Almost forgot about them
If you want to avoid a war. If you don't want to avoid war, then you don't have to.
That's a pretty big caveat, but I suspect you and the rest of the gang in here are perfectly aware of that and that this is just posturing.
Doesn't mean you'll avoid a war, though, does it, choosing appeasement?
Everyone with an army can influence things within the range of those forces. Doesn't mean they get some kind of exempt status. Part of this idea of a "sphere of influence" seems to be logistical, if the US is funding a group in central America, it would cost more for the Russians to fund that same group from across the globe.
Yet the USSR funded Cuba, which the US couldn't take over, and the US operated on the border of the USSR in Europe, even though it was closer to Russia. So where is this sphere?
Mearsheimer's ideas come from a world where the USSR could compete with the other super power, now Russia has an economy the size of Italy (and that was before the sanctions). They can't do anything outside Russia that's so difficult to counter it's not worth the effort.
People are saying that in some of the villages that have been liberated recently in Southern Ukraine, the Russians have killed literally everyone with piles of bodies lying around.
No, it doesn't mean that you'll necessarily avoid a war, I don't think anyone is claiming that, but I hardly think "look at Russia losing this war" is a slam dunk against "this is likely to lead to a war with Russia". In fact, it seems to me the opposite of a dunk. I also don't see how Cuba is supposed to disprove the existence of spheres, in my limited understanding the spheres are about exercising soft and/or hard power, it doesn't have to be absolute or imply omnipotence. So in the context of Central America, if you chose a socialist government then you were "inviting" conflict because the US would try to intervene in some capacity. Be it sanctions, embargoes, assassinations, coups or what have you, depending on several factors.
Whether its worth the effort or not, this also seems completely consistent with the spherical worldview, are you not simply arguing for breaking the sphere via conflict? Russia is weak because Russia is a poor country, and it looks like it's even weaker than what most people thought. So if the will is there they can be taken as long as nuclear war is avoided. Is the will there? That depends on the appetite for war, I'd think.
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it's impressive how an "us" versus "them" mentality took hold here. you always said, for example, that such things were about group recognition. but surely that applies here, too? if people you perceive as pushing the envelope do so for recognition within a group, which i don't think is entirely right, then those who point out that fact, as it seems to them, must be pointing it out for the same reason, except it applies to a counter-group.
what i mean is, from my reading ukraine is in the midst of a massive counter offensive. this has been expected for months. how it goes, or what happens, is up in the air. no one knows. my instinct is to say let's check back in a month or two. but i don't see why or how you draw a hostile or anti-ukrainian worldview from people who were discussing and deconstructing the various aspects of the war as it began. i think that's groupthink. it pits a select people here against a select people there, and does so, if we follow your own thesis, for group recognition.
i hope ukraine manage to take back what territory was taken from them. it won't be easy. you'd expect a massive russian response if ukraine begins to turn the tide. i'm thinking "limited wmds" and the like. they'd go entirely scorched earth imo. but at the very least, i think taking back the areas beyond the separatist republics and crimea seems possible. it's about how long they can hold it thereafter.
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I'm not sure what you mean exactly by your first sentence.
You're saying helping Ukraine is dangerous because it leads to war, and that pointing out Russia is losing doesn't negate this? Sure, but I wasn't saying otherwise.
Russia was going to invade unless they were simply given the country. The people of Ukraine clearly wanted to resist, no one forced them to. War was going to happen, it wasn't something the US could stop.
Are you saying Ukrainians would have been better off living under Russia than having everything destroyed and many of them dying, asking if it's worth the cost? I don't think there's a clear answer to that.
On Cuba, they did get more attention because they were so close, but it's not this irresistible force. You wouldn't say to the USSR that it was futile to help Cuba because it's so close to the US border.
Mearsheimer's not just pointing out that spheres of influencee exist, and that it's a mistake to help Ukraine. He's saying the US and NATO are to blame for the war happening because they dared to ally themselves with Ukraine, because of its location on the Russian border.
That may have made sense in the cold war when the USSR had more resources. That it would be futile to try to exert more influence than them in certain areas. Makes it harder? Sure, but if Russia signed a treaty with Cuba and the US said that because of that Cuba has to either let the US run Cuba or the US would invade, I don't think blaming Russia would be fair.
Sounds awful, but hopefully not true (although no reason not to think that)....... but it can't be the ones hoping to negotiate a surrender if it is indeed true.
By the first sentence I simply mean that ascribing to a sphere of influence worldview doesn't necessitate disregarding other causes of war; saying that encroaching on Russia's sphere is an escalation that risks conflict doesn't mean that appeasement is some panacea. In fact it can't necessitate this because a sphere's power exist due to the threat of force. If Ukraine weren't under some sort of implicit or explicit threat Russia wouldn't have any influence.
So maybe the war would have happened anyway. At some point it was unavoidable, I don't think it was always so but if it wasn't I don't know how big a role the West played. I'm pretty sure it played some role, but it might have been miniscule and irrelevant, I simply don't know. The war would certainly have been different, though, very different.
I'm not saying that Ukraine would have been better off under this or that. I don't know how the different scenarios would look, I don't know their likelyhoods, and I don't know what the Ukrainians would prefer or what they would be willing to risk to achieve that. At the point the war happened Ukraine's preferences are pretty clear, though.
I still don't get the point about futility. You say that the analysis might have held under the USSR era, but it's not like it was inconceivable that the cold war could have turned hot. If that happened the spheres would likely break or move, either because the world ended or because someone came out on top.
About Mearsheimer, I don't know what sort of blame he's talking about. Is he saying that the war wouldn't have happened without the West's actions? If so then he's either right or wrong about that, but Russia's latest setbacks are hardly relevant. Is he laying the moral blame on the West? If so then that's rather spicy, but this latest grandstanding isn't solely about him, it's the "whataboutism posse in the geopolitics thread": it's about anyone questioning the narrative where the West or NATO is nothing but passive observers.
And, again, even if this supposed posse is completely wrong, why would you need to spare them a thought because of Ukraine making a breakthrough? Where has any of them expressed a wish for Russian victory? It doesn't make any sense, and in my view is just an extension of following the war like a game. It's a crowd chant, a boo, not a sentence with actual meaning. This isn't directed at you.
If your argument was that the west shouldn't support Ukraine then you are in fact arguing for a Russian victory.
Part of that argument has always been that Ukraine couldn't win even with western support. That the Russians would eventually get most of their objectives and west was as they liked to put it "fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian".
This breakthrough makes a nonsense of those views. They were wrong.
Part of that argument has always been that Ukraine couldn't win even with western support. That the Russians would eventually get most of their objectives and west was as they liked to put it "fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian".
This breakthrough makes a nonsense of those views. They were wrong.
Not that it’s in any way unbelievable going by what we already know about Russian war crimes but “people are saying” are an objectively poor source and Ukrainian DA office has so far reported about 4 bodies of civilians with signs of torture. There’s enough real horrors, we don’t need to spread rumors that don’t have a proper source at the very least. If there are piles of bodies lying around, we’d probably already seen some photos by now.
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the argument wasn't that ukraine couldn't make breakthroughs. it was that it couldn't win, partially, which i still think is true but depends on how you define win. does it mean ultimate defeat of russia? because that is beyond ukraine and nato. does it mean taking the lost territory back? these questions were asked by very senior figures in foreign affairs from the outset. they weren't criticisms made by anti-ukranians. they were questions asked by people who wanted clarification over the kind of war their countries were dragging them into. the criticism was always the lack of clarity regarding the goal and ad hoc policy making. saying one thing which implied one level of support one day and another which hinted at something far larger and more escalatory the next.
i do think they're fighting russia to the last ukrainian but that doesn't mean that ukraine can't benefit from it. were the americans not fighting the soviets to the last afghani? did the afghanis care? so of course they're using ukraine. it's not a single-use kind of operation. the ukrainians aren't idiots. they know they have use-value to the west and they know their position. nato wants to fight russia via proxy. ukraine wants to fight russia directly. match made in heaven, no? it's not a contradiction, basically. my only criticism would depend upon what the west does over the next couple of years. not what it's doing now. what happens when the russians push back. and then ukraine pushes back. and on and on. all yet to come.
unfortunately i think this will be a massively drawn out war and last for years with the positions being unpredictable but possibly as they were before february.
the other thing is that if you think people making criticisms of the war are on russia's side, then you have, probably, been misled. some will be, for whatever reason which they themselves will scarcely comprehend, but most are not. most i've seen had almost no negative opinions of ukraine and almost no positive opinions on russia, but a highly critical view of nato. which i think is historically justified.
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Its meant as tongue and cheek. There have been some good points made in the Geopolitics thread.
i know. tbf was using your post as kind of proxy. it wasn't particularly aimed at you and kind of extends beyond this thread and topic, too.
Beyond Russian Generals allegedly telling Putin this would be a quick and easy war, not having an NCO corps has definitely hurt them.