Ukraine

[jdanke]

First, thanks for this thread. I'm grateful for the stimulus to think more about this current history and the opportunities to help out, what with the gofundme and other organizations (e.g., Americares here in Conn.).


Thoughtful analysis, imo, on diplomatic failures below.

My basic takeaway from this, and other analyses, is that I haven't found anything that suggests Russia under Putin has tried building positive relationships and security guarantees that offer counterparties (Ukraine) mutually beneficial outcomes. Because of that, I'm not very sympathetic to arguments that Putin was goaded or had no choice.

Oil and gas sales to the West are simply not of the right caliber, hey, it's just business, less charitably it's leverage.

The big question is (given what we think we know) what may be a reasonable diplomatic offramp? Sometimes there are no great choices, but I have blind hope.


IS RUSSIA’S INVASION A CASE OF COERCIVE DIPLOMACY GONE WRONG?

Article sketch, slightly out of order:

#1:

Where Ukraine and NATO saw themselves as attempting to deter aggression and resist blackmail, Russia saw itself as pursuing coercive diplomacy* to compel Ukraine and NATO to reverse course.

*As the article points out, a polite term for blackmail.

#2:

Indeed, for coercion to be successful, threats must be made to seem credible, practical demands must be made clear, and political resolve around those demands must be effectively conveyed.

#3:

On Dec. 15, Russia presented the United States and NATO with a list of diplomatic demands, several of which seemed wildly unrealistic. Russia effectively demanded that the United States permanently withdraw its nuclear forces from Europe and that NATO refrain from placing forces anywhere in the former Soviet Union.

and later
Russia claimed it intended to fully “demilitarize” Ukraine, and to rewrite its constitution to enshrine its formal neutrality as a matter of policy. These constitute ambitious demands indeed, especially when coupled with an insistence that Ukraine’s armed forces essentially surrender, and that Ukraine recognize Russian sovereignty in Crimea and the independence of the separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk

#4:

NATO and Ukraine may have assumed that Russia merely wanted to deter Ukraine from joining NATO, and thus viewed their deepening partnership as fair game. This was clearly a miscalculation about Russia’s intention to compel NATO and Ukraine to terminate and reverse what it perceived as a deleterious policy.


Which doesn't sound like "goading" a Russian invasion or "giving Putin no choice." So let me be clear: I see the bad guy as the barechested dude on the horse.



To pre-empt, the author is from the Stimson Institute, couldn't find anything that hints at being "Putin's plaything" nor an instrument of the "War Pigs."

[jclay]

'The state dept that sent Victoria Nuland to Ukraine in 2014 to help overthrow the govt ‘cause it wasn’t leaning adequately West; which seems to have been the spark that finally caused the civil....let's just say "discord"'

This seems like a big assumption to me.

So the question remains' "Does Ukraine have the right to be free and independent or are they not allowed to upset Putin?"

If they are allowed to be free and independent, then Putin is in the wrong.

1) Transcripts from conversations make clear which Ukrainian administration/potential administrations the US did and did not support. Existing political enmity (it should be obvious that Ukraine is not culturally, ethnically or politically monolithic) were at the root of violence in Ukraine at the time; when I hit the equals button on everything I've read it looks pretty clear the US took advantage of the situation to help oust the existing president and install one more acceptable; this would not be the first time we've done such thing. Nuland's personal/professional stance is public record; but she's just a tool.
2) Ukraine has every right (I've said so before) to be a free, independent, self directed nation who associates with whomever it chooses (like every other nation); sadly that was not and is not a practical possibility. Our "hey, come on in and join NATO, the water's fine!" was an extraordinarily reckless and dangerous thing to do, irrespective of Ukraine's desires. We'd gotten away with it a couple of times before but not with large countries smack dab on the Russian border, never mind one containing Russia's only warm water port.
3) Putin bears total responsibility for initiating hostilities but, just as surely, we helped set the stage for disaster. We should have done what the coach of a 120# professional MMA guy would have done when his charge expressed the desire to take on a 220# professional MMA guy.

that's been your entire thesis in this thread

No, my thesis is not that the US is responsible for all the rat-effing that's been going on in the world. It is, provably, responsible for a lot and we get to question that. If you don't want a Castro, don't support a Batista and abusive corporations. If you don't want a current day Iran, don't help overthrow the '53 government (for deciding to nationalize their oil...which was surely Iran's right to do), install, arm and support a brutal dictator like the Shah, play associated regional powers against each other for oil and then wonder why we're not considered "buds". The list of similar, provable US actions is long but outlandish statements like yours are generally intended to polarize and discredit rather than engage in meaningful analysis or observation.

My basic takeaway from this, and other analyses, is that I haven't found anything that suggests Russia under Putin has tried building positive relationships and security guarantees that offer counterparties (Ukraine) mutually beneficial outcomes. Because of that, I'm not very sympathetic to arguments that Putin was goaded or had no choice.

Has anybody here made that claim ("no choice")? I haven't. Of course he had a choice; though it gets more nuanced and interesting if one considers what his subsequent domestic political situation would have been. Never the less, Putin initiated hostilities; that is totally on him.

What has happened to Ukraine was predicable, indeed it was predicted. We lead them down the garden path because we we're #1 , we're right, whatever.

So, I'll ask again: What did Mearsheimer and the author of the article I linked get wrong? You think more arms/support will put Crimea back into a geographically pre-2014 Ukraine? You think Putin's gonna stop destroying Ukraine? You think the US will be the most powerful economic & military nation for ever? You think the US would have done nothing under an analogous situation? You think we were justified in invading Iraq and Afghanistan over the Sept 11 attacks?

My position and rationale are clear. Barring new interesting perspectives and collegial discussion I'm likely off the back.

[bcm119]

So, I'll ask again: What did Mearsheimer and the author of the article I linked get wrong? You think more arms/support will put Crimea back into a geographically pre-2014 Ukraine? You think Putin's gonna stop destroying Ukraine? You think the US will be the most powerful economic & military nation for ever? You think the US would have done nothing under an analogous situation? You think we were justified in invading Iraq and Afghanistan over the Sept 11 attacks?

Your blind spot is assuming everyone who disagrees with you is basically a neocon and dismissing any criticism of Mearsheimer. There are objective problems with his claims and the truth is likely more nuanced and rooted in history and ideology than US-influenced politics.

Open your mind to the possibility that an old academic who built a career on criticizing US foreign policy is capitalizing on this war to claim victory in hindsight and bring legitimacy to the theories he's touted for years. The US may be obnoxious on the world stage, but the progressive pundits who hawk their theories about it have their own egocentric motivations - especially academics.

[zachateseverything]

No, my thesis is not that the US is responsible for all the rat-effing that's been going on in the world. It is, provably, responsible for a lot and we get to question that. If you don't want a Castro, don't support a Batista and abusive corporations. If you don't want a current day Iran, don't help overthrow the '53 government (for deciding to nationalize their oil...which was surely Iran's right to do), install, arm and support a brutal dictator like the Shah, play associated regional powers against each other for oil and then wonder why we're not considered "buds". The list of similar, provable US actions is long but outlandish statements like yours are generally intended to polarize and discredit rather than engage in meaningful analysis or observation.

I dunno dude. You're taking the word "all" too seriously when that was clearly tongue in cheek. My larger point stands. You're actively disseminating Russian propaganda because it confirms with your biases against American imperialism.

[Marvinlungwitz]

Garry Kasparov on NPR this AM.

https://www.npr.org/2022/04/30/10957...ins-first-stop

[fastupslowdown]

I hate giving credit to Putin, but this morning I'm listening to the news and they identify the batallion stuck in Maripol as the Azoff battalion so off to google I went and every news story and reference has them as a neo-nazi far right movement. Did I miss something? -Mike G

[Scott G.]

I hate giving credit to Putin, but this morning I'm listening to the news and they identify the batallion stuck in Maripol as the Azoff battalion so off to google I went and every news story and reference has them as a neo-nazi far right movement. Did I miss something? -Mike G

The Putin version of "The one drop rule"

Anyway, his Victory Day speech was plain kasha.

[fastupslowdown]

The Putin version of "The one drop rule"

Anyway, his Victory Day speech was plain kasha.

As in he wants Ukraine buckwheat to go with his bow-ties? For historical reference George H Bush gave a speech discouraging Ukraine from joining NATO called the Chicken Kiev speech

[j44ke]

I hate giving credit to Putin, but this morning I'm listening to the news and they identify the batallion stuck in Maripol as the Azoff battalion so off to google I went and every news story and reference has them as a neo-nazi far right movement. Did I miss something? -Mike G

There's a discussion earlier in this thread.

[Doug Fattic]

I hate giving credit to Putin, but this morning I'm listening to the news and they identify the batallion stuck in Maripol as the Azoff battalion so off to google I went and every news story and reference has them as a neo-nazi far right movement. Did I miss something? -Mike G

Pretend for a minute that Ontario decided to invade Michigan and our Governor Whitmer calls for volunteers that have weapons to help chase those vermin back across the St Clair River. Who do you think will answer the call? Yep, some will have pickups with confederate flag bumper stickers. The sometimes disliked group in Ukraine are the Roma (Gypsies). Some of those Ukrainian militia types feel the same about Roma as some American militia types feel about blacks.

When there is a call for action for people that own guns to shoot other people, you can expect some of the responders will have racial issues. That doesn't make the guys that started shooting first the good guys.

One summer when I was working on a college campus on our charity bicycle project in Bucha near Kyiv, there was a German university conference there studying the Roma. The lead professor was German and the 20 or so students came from literally all over the world. The conference was in English because that is the international language. I'd chat with them in the cafeteria sometimes. There is quite a concentration of Roma in Ukraine. They could be very aggressive begging me for handouts. It is easy to understand why they could be disliked.

[fastupslowdown]

Pretend for a minute that Ontario decided to invade Michigan and our Governor Whitmer calls for volunteers that have weapons to help chase those vermin back across the St Clair River. Who do you think will answer the call? Yep, some will have pickups with confederate flag bumper stickers. The sometimes disliked group in Ukraine are the Roma (Gypsies). Some of those Ukrainian militia types feel the same about Roma as some American militia types feel about blacks.

When there is a call for action for people that own guns to shoot other people, you can expect some of the responders will have racial issues. That doesn't make the guys that started shooting first the good guys.

One summer when I was working on a college campus on our charity bicycle project in Bucha near Kyiv, there was a German university conference there studying the Roma. The lead professor was German and the 20 or so students came from literally all over the world. The conference was in English because that is the international language. I'd chat with them in the cafeteria sometimes. There is quite a concentration of Roma in Ukraine. They could be very aggressive begging me for handouts. It is easy to understand why they could be disliked.

So my dad was a holocaust survivor. near lviv. what the native ukranians did was worse than the nazis. that being said. i do realize that children aren't guilty of the sins of the parents and Putin really is the bad guy here. but I do know the history

[Scott G.]

As in he wants Ukraine buckwheat to go with his bow-ties? For historical reference George H Bush gave a speech discouraging Ukraine from joining NATO called the Chicken Kiev speech

Putin could have a declared a great victory, is there anyone in Russian media to say otherwise ?

Bush I understood the near abroad rule, he just said it in public, ooopsie.
Bush II invited Georgia and Ukraine into NATO.
More entries in why Presidential dynasticism is a really bad idea.

[72gmc]

Bush 1's Carlyle Group connections cause me to question who he was working for when he did things as president and vice president.

[fastupslowdown]

Hearing Kissinger speak on Ukraine, Russia and China is always a treat. He has a unique ability to understand and explain the background

https://www.ft.com/video/8ee73080-6e...c-5eda436328e1

[jclay]

Your blind spot is assuming everyone who disagrees with you is basically a neocon and dismissing any criticism of Mearsheimer. There are objective problems with his claims and the truth is likely more nuanced and rooted in history and ideology than US-influenced politics.

Open your mind to the possibility that an old academic who built a career on criticizing US foreign policy is capitalizing on this war to claim victory in hindsight and bring legitimacy to the theories he's touted for years. The US may be obnoxious on the world stage, but the progressive pundits who hawk their theories about it have their own egocentric motivations - especially academics.

There are objective problems with the arguments on the other side too; and you might open your mind to the possibility that the old academic named Mearsheimer might be right (and seems to have gotten it right in some of his earlier talks ~2015), and that the academic you cited, who teaches at West Point where you probably don't get hired or promoted for disagreeing with the party line, might be wrong!

Your assertion that I think all who disagree with me are neocons is a baseless straw man argument. Mearsheimer might indeed be wrong, but on balance, when I look at what the US has been doing in the post WWII era, our MIC, our documented hypocrisy and all too often disastrous "interventions" and such as that, and then hit the "equals" button, I tend to generally agree with the likes of Mearsheimer, Chalmers Johnson, Eisenhower, et al.

When there is a call for action for people that own guns to shoot other people, you can expect some of the responders will have racial issues. That doesn't make the guys that started shooting first the good guys.

Indeed...but it is consistent with the indications of substantial and difficult, geographically based, ethnic/socio/political/cultural differences within Ukraine. Our batting average wrt messing around with, never mind brokering peace in, countries with such divisions is rather dismal, and costly all around. On balance I still opine that the subject US foreign policy was reckless and that a serious negative outcome was predictable, as indeed it was. If nothing else we gave Putin a plausible grievance to exploit; absent NATO courtship and our involvement in the 2014 fracas his invasion of Ukraine would, I think, have been less palatable to more countries on the world stage and therefore less likely.

As a general aside: Putin doesn't have to truly fear a NATO initiated war on Russia or Ukrainian membership in same, and I buy the notion that a successful Western market-ish based Ukraine could be irksome to him, but the mere loss of prestige accompanying all of that (and his concomitant domestic political situation) could reasonably be expected to generate some push-back. If memory serves, our own Monroe Doctrine (or related documents) warn of severe consequences delivered on any who threaten not just the US or US power, but "US prestige".

My position is unchanaged: Putin is the aggressor and I hope he ends up in the Hague; but the US is complicit setting the stage.

[jimcav]

perhaps it is my mood tonight having just read the new yorker article with some stark images of the deaths in Ukraine, but I find the various arguments on what set the stage for this war tiresome. IF we want to try to derive some "lessons learned" now (and in truth much is still unknown), and speculate on how US foreign policy/influencing might want to take specific, different actions in the future for country X; that might be interesting or possibly useful, although I struggle at the moment to think of an area we are messing around with that might suddenly be invaded.

Did our actions in/around Kuwait set the stage for invasion by Saddam? Were the same meddling behaviors repeated in Ukraine, are we repeating them now in _____?

These are academic tangents with regard to the current war and suffering, and I see nothing in such to help understand how to end the suffering. If you extend the argument that perceived threat or simply loss of prestige is somehow a basis for invasion, then this war has made all that worse--more of Northern Europe interested in NATO, and highlighting the incompetence and awful brutality of the mighty army.

How about more relevant discussions, such as how can the allied nations best assist Ukraine, how can we individually help (I donated to World Central Kitchen, UINICEF, and Sunflower of Peace; but would like to hear of other avenues to help), and, for those more learned than I, what is the possible save-face exit path for Putin?

[jclay]

^^
I appreciate your constructive approach.

Re NATO advancement to the Russian border, related perceived loss of prestige and the fact that more countries want NATO membership now, yeah, Putin miscalculated on that one; but miscalculations like that are common and I'm not sure its helpful in the pursuit of de-escalation.

What’s long been tiresome to me, and destructive as hell to the general population of too many countries, is the number of countries we’ve helped, one way or another, destabilize, and the fact that we keep doing it. I suggest reading Chalmers Johnson, William Blum, Barbara Tuchman….even that “old academic” Mearsheimer, and maybe even take a peek at the historical activities of The School of the Americas (@ Ft Benning) contribution to destabilizing certain S and Central American countries. My take on the post WWII USA is that, by and large, we'll get into bed with anybody for oil, other resources of if they say they're "fighting communism" (even if the particular leader is brutalizing his impoverished population that's fighting for a better life). Don't want a Castro? Don't support a Batista. I'd be happy...no, ecstatic, to be wrong about all of that but like the home plate umpire said, "I calls'em as I sees'em".

How to engineer a face saving exit for Putin...or otherwise end the war? That’s long odds now that the fighting has started, lots of blood has been spilled and massive damage done. Two general routes seem obvious, both with distasteful elements: 1) Loudly advertise that NATO membership is off the table for Ukraine (and now probably the new applicants), concede that Crimea, Sevastopol and access to it are in Russia’s hands and that Ukraine will effectively be a neutral buffer nation….though at this point I question whether or not Ukraine would go along with all of that. 2) Somehow be successful at helping Ukraine win the war without starting a much larger and potentially nuclear one, which maybe appears more possible than I thought though I don't see how Putin relinquishes Crimea and access to it without employing pretty much everything he's got in a fight to keep it....which makes that route pretty frightening. Happy to be wrong about it.

[bigbill]

I could see Ukraine conceding the Crimea, but nothing west of that. The Russians attempted to take the entire Black Sea coast of Ukraine to establish a land bridge west. That would land lock Ukraine so even if they became a non-NATO neutral buffer between Russia and the West, Russia would still control much of Ukraine's economy via Black Sea ports. Give Putin Crimea and tell him to go home. He can save some face by officially bringing in a territory he has occupied for eight years. The Russians need Crimea so their fleet has warm-ish water ports.

[jimcav]

I guess it is a good thing I am not in any position to affect policy. I for one think Putin's is all bluster about nuclear weapons. The majority of nations with true projection of power ability dramatically responded to his invasion, and to think they'd sit by if he brings out nukes is implausible to me.

I'd imagine that even if he is bat-shit-covid-post-stroke crazy and uses one, there are umpteen plans monitoring known launch sites, with plans to shoot it down, or at least immediately destroy the launch site because having a nuke fly OUT of Russia and into another nation, even if not NATO, is simply unacceptable.

Various high level official gov't spoke persons from SECDEF, CJCS, etc have made explicit public remarks on the limitations of Russian military capability (most recently that their hypersonic missiles are really fast, but don't do anything significant damage-wise compared to their other smart and dumb ordinance). I'd say the between-the-lines message is clear--if YOU escalate, you will fail.

I wish Biden et al (coalition nations etc) would not even act as if Putin has the right to instruct sovereign nations on what deals they can and cannot make with Ukraine. I'm all for Polish jets, or US jets or whatever make/model/quantity of any offensive weapons any nation wants to send to Ukraine. I get we can't have our men and women doing no-fly etc, but see no reason to respect Putin's ridiculous decrees about what material assistance can be provided.

I also realize the oil/fuel industry is risk averse after the pandemic and oil barrels going negative for a bit, but let's get them ramping up to help ease domestic has-price anxiety and to sell/transport to Germany etc to offset what they are loosing by boycotting Russian NG etc.

Hopefully no Vietnam-era BS where politics and elections is playing into actions. I'm sure elections are always considered, but I hope there is no direct choice made that prolongs anything because they want a result to occur timed to elections.

I agree with Bill, although it might be possible to help Ukraine hammer back at them more effectively, unless we can achieve a similar Soviet-era collapse/near-bankruptcy due to excessive military spending within 6-mos, there is going to have to be some exit plan, and official international recognized crimea-is-russia is palatable. Or maybe an Omicron-Z variant will take hold in the Kremlin and solve this.

[Dave Thompson]

A Putin joke, moderately OT but somewhat relevant.

Putin dies and goes to hell. After a while he’s given a day off for good behavior.

So he goes to Moscow, enters a bar, orders a drink and asks the bartender:

-Is the Crimea ours?

-Yes, it is.

-And the Donbas?

-Also ours.

-And Kyiv?

-We got that too.

-Satisfied, Putin finishes his drink and asks:

-Thanks, how much do I owe you?

-5 Euros.