This article opens with a video clip of a reporter speaking in Swedish about Erdogan/Turkey's opinions on Sweden and Finland joining NATO. Although there are captions, manually typing in each caption to a translation service seems very tedious.
Maybe, but I don't think so. The non-English articles that get submitted are usually current-affairs pieces. If we were seeing a lot of obscure, intellectually interesting content that really hit the HN sweet spot, that would be a stronger case—certainly such content exists in many languages. But it's not what people pick to post here.
So does everyone here speak Swedish except me, or are we all chatting about an article we can't read? Here's an English article saying the same, just to maintain the illusion.
Occasionally there are HN articles with different articles. Court cases is a common one where often the HN article link to the primary sources and those that can't read dutch, German, Hindi or what have you will just have to auto translate or find a different source. Sometimes a friendly HN comment will post a good secondary source and hopefully it will rise to the top.
So let's recount what Putin has achieved in the last 3 months:
1. Failed to conquer all of Ukraine;
2. Failed to capture Kyiv;
3. Failed to make meaningful gains in the Donbass;
4. Failed to decapitate Ukraine's leadership;
5. Suffered huge casulaties;
6. Done massive damage to the perception of Russia's military (and thus the power it can project);
7. Done more for NATO solidarity than probably anything else in the last 20 years when previous to this, there wasn't a lot as much fervour for NATO;
8. Prompted Finland and Sweden to join NATO when previously they were happy being neutral;
9. Russia is now subject to broad sanctions where previously Europe was looking to increase gas dependence on Russia (eg Nord Stream 2).
So Putin has quite literally achieved nothing. A lot of this was foreseeable too, which is why many (including myself) thought Putin wouldn't invade.
The question now is what is Putin's state of mind? Is he aware of the true position (as in, is he getting accurate assessments and intelligence or just "yes men")? Does he still think he can "win"? What does "winning" even look like now? A rational person would be looking for a face-saving exit (think "mission accomplished"). I thought that might be occupying the Donbass and negotiating for some autonomy for the region but even that is starting to look out of reach.
My concern is that someone cornered like this after making such a huge gamble at terrible cost is capable of doing something even more awful.
You forgot couple important aspects: he also ruined the Russian economy (the conservative estimate is -12% GDP drop this year). Russian military industry also lost access to the Western high tech (unfortunately, a lot of it has been used in their modern equipment, such as missiles, aircraft, etc). It will take at least a decade for them rebuild the armed forces after the war with Ukraine.
There is indeed a risk of Kremlin using the tactical nuclear weapons. The United States needs to have a very robust strategy for such possibility. However, such use cannot be left without a response. Most likely it would be a military response. No response would set a catastrophic precedent, as it would invite the use of nuclear weapons in pretty much any conflict which involves a nuclear power. Just think about South China Sea, Kashmir conflict, etc. It would also lead to an era of nuclear proliferation, as weaker states would see no other option than to obtain nukes.
I think even the nutcases in Kremlin (or at least the Russian Armed Forces) understand that there would be an unprecedented response.
>You forgot couple important aspects: he also ruined the Russian economy (the conservative estimate is -12% GDP drop this year
The conservative estimate was that the ruble would plunge about 30% as a result of the war. It's now bizarrely higher than its been in 5 years.
I dont remember anybody foreseeing that. Zero. Not one analyst. Ive only heard retrospective justifications for why it happened which any idiot can come up with.
I definitely cant believe Russia is coming out of this unscathed but economic predictions are a crapshoot at the best of times and these are very much uncharted territories.
>I dont remember anybody foreseeing that. Zero. Not one analyst. Ive only heard retrospective justifications for why it happened which any idiot can come up with.
It makes sense (in retrospect; I am certainly not an analyst who predicted this beforehand).
Right now, it is more or less impossible for any Russian to a) use the dollar to buy anything from outside Russia, and b) travel outside Russia to buy anything in the first place. That greatly reduces the demand for exchanging rubles for dollars, whether via official or unofficial means.
Consider Argentina, a country that for years has had its own serious economic issues. A huge skew between the official and black-market exchange rate for hard currency, such as in Argentina (the "dolar azul"), exists because a) there are capital controls but b) it's still possible to use those dollars/Euro/Swiss franc/whatever. Argentineans are free to use the US dollar to buy things, both inside and outside Argentina. This doesn't apply to Russians.
You wrote elsewhere:
>Im also really skeptical of the position that its an irrelevant economic indicator only when it goes in the opposite direction you expect it to. Everybody was saying the exact opposite when the ruble was plunging.
Agreed. It seems like Western analysts were completely wrong on both Russia's military strength versus Ukraine's, and the impact of Western sanctions on the Russian economy.
Most countries choose to have two out of three things for a currency (having all three is impossible):
1. Control over the value
2. Control over inflation
3. Free trade
Russia has chosen to just go for one of the trifecta, and have lost all trade and has skyrocketing inflation - but manages to keep the ruble trading high for propaganda purposes as it's seen as the "quick way to measure" an economy.
This contradicts what Ive heard from inside the country which is that inflation spiked sharply to ~40% and then prices came down (now 15% up on prewar levels).
So, inflation is a bit higher than in the west but it is not runaway for us or them...yet.
It appears more as if this is due to the balance of payments. Imports are down due to sanctions while exports of gas/oil by value are up. Hence higher ruble.
Ruble is a weak indicator as the central bank has tools to control the exchange rate. Soviet ruble also had a strong and, for a long time, quite stable exchange rate with the US dollar. However, in Soviet Union you could not legally own foreign currency (nor you could buy Western goods and services). The exchange rate by no means indicated the economic situation in the USSR.
Weak or not it is an indicator and it is indicative of economic muscle - economic muscle we are frequently told Russia is supposed to have lost as a result of this war.
This indicator shot up in the exact opposite direction all western commentators said it would.
Id be interested in economic commentary by anybody who predicted this or even said it was a possibility but Im profoundly disinterested in economic commentary from people who were completely blindsided by it and are now scrambling to offer posthoc rationalizations. These are not thinkers they are sheep.
Im also really skeptical of the position that its an irrelevant economic indicator only when it goes in the opposite direction you expect it to. Everybody was saying the exact opposite when the ruble was plunging.
The other side: The ruble is up. This is indeed strange, and no one really foresaw this result. Explanations range from Putin has chosen to prop it up at the expense of other indicators to gaz trades are still high, and availability on foreign markets of rubles has dropped sharply.
Your side: Putin has shown economic muscle that no one expected he would have. There are definitely eggs on the face of the western analysts.
In my opinion it's destroying Ukraine as a country. Even if it takes years he's ready to keep this thing going until our economy collapses.
I mean, you're right, Russia hasn't succeeded in its goals. But if we take a look at Ukraine which will start to struggle economically in near future [1] you can change your opinion.
You bring up a good point. I've given this some thought. On its face I think it's a reasonable position: if Putin can't have Ukraine, nobody can (not even Ukraine). This is more believable when you consider that oil and gas reserves have been found in Ukraine but it lacks the capital to develop them. Shell was in Crimea prior to the annexation.
But this theory has a few problems.
1. The cost of wrecking Ukraine has been really high.
2. Ukraine was earning a significant amount of money (ie billions) from carrying Russian natural gas to Western Europe through pipelines. Russia has since built other pipelines to avoid this problem but I believe they were still 1-2 years away from completely bypassing Ukraine;
3. Arguably Russiaa can do more damage outside or Ukraine than in it. Russia has been stirring up trouble and supplying separatists in the Donbass since at least 2014. In some ways annexing the Donbass would solve a problem for Ukraine as they'd no longer have this divisive element within their borders. It's arguably more of a problem for Ukraine for the Donbass to be part of Ukraine and this required no further intervention from Russia and certainly no invasion.
It is absolutely a loss-loss situation for Russia and Ukraine. However, as long as the West maintains sanctions on Russia and provides a substantial support (both economic and military) to Ukraine, then Russia will not be able to sustain its war effort and pressure on Ukraine.
Europe is finally, for real (albeit slowly and painfully), moving away from the Rusian fossil fuels this time. It will take some time, but it's a tectonic shift.
Putin has been writing and speaking about this for years. He really thinks Russia should control other Slavic people, and former territories of Russia and Soviet Union etc. And it's not only Putin. Most of the other high ranking officials must have been supporting the attack into Ukraine, otherwise it would not have happened. If it was him alone against everyone else, Putin would simply have been replaced. A large portion of the Russian population also supports the attack.
It is no fluke. You can't pin it on one "madman". It's as if the majority Russian people in Russia genuinely think they should control the land and people that is Ukraine. It's not all people. There are anti-war protests, millions of people have left Russia, and there are dissidents.
To somehow recover from this, it would require some deep reflection on what Russia really is, and what is its role in humanity. I'm afraid it will take some drastic events before people are able to question themselves to that level. It would begin with the philosophers and poets.
A few days ago I saw a video where a Fin explained that in the last 1000 years, Russia tried to invade Finland 20 times (I didn't verify this data). He claimed that about every 2 to 3 generations, this happens.
This was a real eye-opener for me, and reminds me of a (probably Dutch) expression: A fox loses its hair but not its tricks.
Thousand years? 20 times seems like a comically tiny amount at that scale.
Finland had managed to be both part of Russian Empire, Sweden and hell a lot of other adventures in that huge period. That's like all the way back to Kievan Rus.
I don't put a lot of stock in the Russian Imperialism ambitions as being a serious factor in this invasion. I just don't think it adds up. I mean even if Putin was saying this, that doesn't mean a lot. The US, for example, says they're spreading democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, fro example.
I believe it's far more likely that Russia actually wanted (wants?) a buffer between it and NATO. They've been warning of this since 2008 (when Bush opened the door to Ukraine joining NATO).
Why do I find this more believable? Because it's exactly what imperial powers do. It's exactly what the United States has done. The US almost started World War Three over a Soviet presence in Cuba. The US for 200 years (ie the Monroe Doctrine) has considered the Americas the sole province of the US and any foreign military to be a threat.
China does this too. Mongolia is a buffer to Russia. North Korea is a buffer to South Korea (and the significant US military presence there).
For Imperialist ambitions to make sense, Russia would have to either occupy Ukraine on a long term basis or install a puppet regime (eg like Belarus). Both are doomed from the start. The Ukraine is too large to occupy and would be too expensive. The USSR couldn't even maintain a puppet government in Afghanistan (and nor could the US obviously).
You are buying too much into the Russian propaganda. First, it is not NATO which expanded "into" the Baltic States and Eastern Europe. These countries voluntarily applied and their diplomats lobbied very hard to get accepted into NATO, precisely because of Russia's aggressive and militaristic policies. Why do you think that these sovereign European nations actually want to be a "buffer"? Why do you think somebody should have a right to constrain their sovereignty?
Ukraine was not even close to joining NATO, despite all declarations (moreover, Russia firmly prevented it by orchestrating the War in Donbas). With Finland joining NATO, Russia will now have 1340 km border with NATO. What Putin is going to do about that? It was never about NATO. Look at the origins of the Russian-Ukrainian War (it wasn't just 2013, the cracks started as early as 2004). Moscow always had a distorted view of the Ukrainian history and its sovereignty as an independent nation (despite signing treaties and agreements recognizing it).
> For Imperialist ambitions to make sense, Russia would have to either occupy Ukraine on a long term basis or install a puppet regime (eg like Belarus). Both are doomed from the start. The Ukraine is too large to occupy and would be too expensive. The USSR couldn't even maintain a puppet government in Afghanistan (and nor could the US obviously).
This is precisely what they tried to do with this invasion, thinking that if the Ukrainian government gets decapitated, the majority of the Ukrainian population would not resist and cooperate. Kremlin massively miscalculated because they started believing their own propaganda and their intelligence would feed the dictator with the information he wanted to hear rather than reality.
Arguing NATO didn't expand into the Baltic states is semantics, at best. Sure the countries have to apply to join but the current NATO members have to acquiesce. Even with this relationship the US can (and has) communicated policy prior to expansion. The act of expnasion itself is evidene of US policy since the US could veto it fif it was something it didn't want.
My suspicion is you're viewing the US as a benign hegemony. The problem with this thinking is it makes it harder to see things from the other side, namely that another foreign power might reasonably perceive "benign" actions as hotile.
This is especially true of NATO, which was founded on the idea of screwing the USSR (quite literally). Well the USSR doesn't exist anymore yet NATO persists. Russia has to view that as aggressive especially with continued expansion. The standard response here is that NATO is a defensive alliance, which is complete BS (eg Libya, Kosovo, basing nuclear weapons capable of hitting Moscow in Turkey).
> Why do you think that these sovereign European nations actually want to be a "buffer"?
Because there are advantages to being neutral. You can't get roped into a war you didn't consent to. The great powers that border you tend to be happier with your neutrality than picking sides. Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and Ireland are all countries in Europe who have policies of neutrality. A neutral state between great powers is by definition a buffer state.
And like I said, the US does exactly the same thing. Do you think the US would idly sit by if Mexico and Canada decided to join a military alliance with China and allow China to build forward operating bases along the US border? There's absolutely no shot.
So why if the US would never allow Chinese military bases on its border should the US be surprised that Russia would have the exact same objection?
> Why do you think somebody should have a right to constrain their sovereignty?
Because joining NATO requires mutual consent. No country has a right to join if NATO declines and NATO does have a right to decline. Germany in particular has indicated they had no intention of allowing Ukraine to join NATO for pretty much exactly the reasons we're seeing now.
> With Finland joining NATO, Russia will now have 1340 km border with NATO. What Putin is going to do about that?
That's my point: this has been a massive miscalculation by Putin. But not all borders are created equal. Geography matters. A border with Ukraine is of more strategic threat than a border with Finland just because most of Ukraine is flat.
> This is precisely what they tried to do with this invasion
My sense is they trid to decapitate Ukraine's leadership and pave the way for a pro-Russian regime. This was a massive miscalculation. TListen to anyone who knows anything about the military and you'll find estimates that Russia would probably need over 400,000 soldiers to occupy Ukraine. They don't have that. They couldn't afford it if they did.
> Arguing NATO didn't expand into the Baltic states is semantics, at best. Sure the countries have to apply to join but the current NATO members have to acquiesce. Even with this relationship the US can (and has) communicated policy prior to expansion. The act of expnasion itself is evidene of US policy since the US could veto it fif it was something it didn't want.
You talk about technicalities, but you ignore the key point here: these countries saw NATO membership being vital for their national security.
> My suspicion is you're viewing the US as a benign hegemony. The problem with this thinking is it makes it harder to see things from the other side, namely that another foreign power might reasonably perceive "benign" actions as hotile.
Perhaps it isn't, but it is benign for those countries who want to join (or joined) NATO. So, what is wrong with that?
> This is especially true of NATO, which was founded on the idea of screwing the USSR (quite literally). Well the USSR doesn't exist anymore yet NATO persists. Russia has to view that as aggressive especially with continued expansion.
If Russia would not be a dictatorship which threatens its neighbours, if it wouldn't demonstrate aggressive and coercive behaviour, then perhaps there would be no need for NATO. However, Russia did everything it possibly can to ruin its relationship with most neighbours and gave them every reason to join the military alliance. Now they blame NATO for it?
> Because there are advantages to being neutral. You can't get roped into a war you didn't consent to.
This is just absolutely not true. Baltic States were neutral before the World War II. They were invaded and occupied by Soviet Russia (and briefly by Nazi Germany). Neutrality does not guarantee sovereignty. Moreover, smaller countries which are close to large countries might simply not have numbers to resist a large aggressive neighbour. In such case, military alliances are their only option.
> Because joining NATO requires mutual consent.
Huh? I am talking about a third country. Why should a third country, especially a potential aggressor, have a right to veto the membership? It is a matter of NATO and the applicant country.
> That's my point: this has been a massive miscalculation by Putin. But not all borders are created equal. Geography matters. A border with Ukraine is of more strategic threat than a border with Finland just because most of Ukraine is flat.
Saint Petersburg will be about 100 km from the NATO border. Yet Ukraine is nearly 500 km away from Moscow. It just doesn't add up.
> My sense is they trid to decapitate Ukraine's leadership and pave the way for a pro-Russian regime. This was a massive miscalculation.
We are in agreement on this. Militarily they just didn't even have the right numbers (let alone other spectacular failures), yet Russians still opened wide fronts and went after the capital Kyiv.
The USSR “occupied” Ukraine for most of the 20th century, aided and abetted by the Holodomor, so there’s no obvious reason they couldn’t again.
Russian state TV is awash with pundits who are asserting the Russian empire should be re-created in Ukraine and the Baltics, and that Ukrainians are subhuman. There’s plenty of reason to believe Putin wants his empire.
Sure but in the Cold War period, as one data point, the Red Army had between 4 and 5 million soldiers [1].
A lot of people don't realize how much smaller the 21st century great power militaries are in pure manpower terms than the Cold War era, even for the US [2].
Additionally history is a huge factor here. Ukraine came under Soviet control as a consequence of the Russian Empire and this type of imperialism that had been rampant in human history up to this point largely died with World War Two and the onset of the nuclear age. European powers lost their remaining colonies (mostly) in the years following WWII.
The US has quite famously lost every war they've been in since 1945.
Ukraine as part of the USSR was really a vestige of a bygone era combined with a totalitarian government and a way stronger military than, say, exists now in Russia.
More people should be listening to Fiona Hill on this issue...she knows Putin better than any other outsider. And she has been saying the same thing for years: that if he doesn't get what he wants, he'll start using nukes. He wants to be seen as someone who restored the glory of the Russian empire, and he will use any tool at his disposal to get it. His lack of use of nukes up until this point doesn't really mean that he is bluffing, it is about timing and situational prudence; now is just not the right time. Also, she keeps saying that World War 3 has already started, we just haven't acknowledged it yet.
Those are positive, not normative analyses. The real question is what do we do about it. And I can't help but think that if it is more or less inevitable that he will use nukes before losing the war, and the only reason he hasn't used them yet is because of situational timing, then the approach that stands out to me is that we're in a better position to attack him now than we would be when he thinks the timing is right to blow up the world.
The worst part is that I can't see a valid "out" for Russia as a country from this.
Even if Russians, by some miracle, manage to pry Putin out of power, what then? Will anyone trust any of their leadership?
The level of sanctions on Russia is AFAIK unprecedented on a global scale, it's only been months and regular people are already feeling the effects. And if the sanctions go on for a few years, they'll be at Soviet Russia levels of living.
> Even if Russians, by some miracle, manage to pry Putin out of power, what then? Will anyone trust any of their leadership?
The only way that could happen is with some Germany post-WW2 level consequences and reckoning. All high level military, intelligence, civilian administration get one way tickets to The Hague for trial, with mandatory permanent exile for those not guilty of crimes. Full demilitarisation. Heavy economic sanctions for the rebuilding of Ukraine, and then Russia itself with loans
Why do you think there should be a "valid" (you mean face-saving?) exit from the war? I would argue that a full military defeat of Russia is a valid end of this war.
The Ruble is the world's top growing currency this year. The analysts seem to believe that it won't stay on top but that's certainly a positive note for Russia.
If he achieved "nothing" that would infact be preferable for Russia to the state they are in now. What he did is an equivalent of the manager of your team pulling a couple of all nighters over the weekend to do a "hero-refactor" on your codebase for "improvements" and then deploying it into production only for everyone to discover that the "improved" code has massive performance regressions, worse user experience and is harder to maintain... worse it can't be rolled back easily and the process of rolling it back will be slow and annoying, that is if the manager who made those changes even admits that it should be rolled back in the first place.
After all Putin's talk of the threats that other countries pose to Russia, the real threat to Russia is quite clearly Putin. He's a liability, and there's a very real possibility that he might make things even worse. Russia would be wise to remove him, but I have no idea how hard that would be.
> A lot of this was foreseeable too, which is why many (including myself) thought Putin wouldn't invade.
It was a gamble. Would Ukraine fold, or not? If they folded, Russia could have taken all of Ukraine, and the only price would be the sanctions. Putin could easily have thought that it would be worth the price.
The question was, what were the odds of Ukraine folding? Putin may have thought they were 90%, which would make it a worthwhile gamble. I'm not sure anyone in the West regarded the current situation as the most likely outcome, either.
So I'm not sure that it's fair to say that "a lot of this was forseeable". The sanctions were (though perhaps not to this level). NATO solidarity and Finland and Sweden joining were somewhat forseeable. I'm not sure that the rest were.
It doesn't matter if Ukraine folded. Why? Because what happens next?
If Russia installs a puppet regime and leaves, how long does that puppet regime last?
If Russia stays and maintains a military occupation, it faces the prospect of a decades-long counter-insurgency from a geographically large country with 44 million potential insurgents who are really unified by their hatred of Russians. Post-WW2 insurgencies have had an incredibly high chance of success against even far more numerous and technologically superior occupying forces. It's a bad bet.
I agree. The Putin regime has paid such an enormous price over the last three months that I'm now concerned they might take egregious and insane steps at any time. These steps would be to save face, and I think they can in part be avoided if the regime could somehow package together something that they can sell as a victory to the Russian people and their sympathizers abroad.
I've been keeping an eye on non-MSM sources, and I've of two minds:
* Is there any evidence that what you say is true? I find it hard to believe most news sources these days, and most nation states often boost their own bravado through press conferences.
* If it is true, then I'm glad that US representatives haven't wasted taxpayer money by sending military aid when it's obviously not needed. I lean libertarian like many others on this forum, so I resonate a lot with similar commentary here.
> Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Sunday outlined demands for Finland and Sweden which seek membership in NATO in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
> Speaking with Turkish reporters after a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Berlin, he said that Sweden and Finland must stop supporting terrorists in their countries, provide clear security guarantees and lift export bans on Turkey.
> From the Turkish perspective, why would they allow someone who supports their enemies to join the alliance?
This makes it sound like Sweden does something that other NATO members don't. That's not the case. Sweden supports the SDC in syria, which supports the YPG, which is connected to the PKK. And this is controversial in several of the countries that do this, including the US.
While it's true that it's Sweden applying for membership and not anyone else, the logical thing for Turkey to do here is to try to pressure the whole alliance to adopt some policy change (such as a terror clasification for YPG, and/or no more aid to SDC and connected groups).
Exactly. Turkey's objection doesn't really have much to do with Sweden and Finland, it's more an opportunity for Turkey to get concessions from other NATO members on an issue on which Turkey disagrees with the rest of NATO: the Kurds.
As far as I know, it has to be approved unanimously, so Turkey can say "NO" and nothing will happen. The point is that ... today Turkey makes demands, sure, but tomorrow it's someone else, or event today itself, except that Turkey is more "dramatic" about it. Who knows what Finland and Sweden actually have to "give" in order to join NATO. That's life, and that's also okay.
Which is BTW similar to what's happening to EU: they realized that some states have too much power in the admission process, so they want to "speed up" the process. Probably they will go for a "3/4" of the members have to say YES. That kind of stuff. Same old, same old.
Perhaps it's more important to have Turkey in NATO than Sweden and Finland, but I honestly don't know. I hear Finland has a strong army and it's useful to have all of the Baltic Sea countries in NATO.
> From the Turkish perspective, why would they allow someone who supports their enemies to join the alliance?
Because the accession process provides Turkey an opportunity to apply leverage against Sweden and Finland to change their behavior. Simply refusing to allow it would gain Turkey nothing and harm them indirectly by weakening (or failing to strengthen) an alliance that Turkey depends on for its own security.
> From the Turkish perspective, why would they allow someone who supports their enemies to join the alliance?
...because neither country is supporting Erdoğan's enemies? The dictator is just posturing for his own people, he'll never actually dare to vote against every other country in NATO.
I doubt it, the Turks have been one of Ukraine’s strongest supporters, sending Bayraktar drones, closing their airspace to Russian flights, and closing the entrance to the Black Sea from the Mediterranean to Russian warships (all warships tbf). They’re no friend of Russia.
This appears to just be about Sweden and Finland’s support for the Kurds, some of who are in Iraq and some in Turkey. Turkey doesn’t want them forming a new and potentially hostile nation on its border, and doesn’t want any support for that from within NATO.
Unfortunately for the Kurds they’re probably about to get thrown under the bus, since Finland and Sweden are now more concerned about the much larger, aggressive, unstable, nuclear-armed rogue state on their own border.
I think you are missing a lot of the military cooperation between Russia and Turkey. Turkey is buying weapons from Russia. Also, Erdogan stopped delivering the tank-busting missiles for the TB2 drone, which is a big deal. There really is no replacement. The Hellfire missile is too heavy and the Americans now have delivered unguided rockets retrofitted with a laser-seeking head but which can't bust tanks...
So, Turkey and Russia might not exactly be friends. Erdogan and Putin is another topic.
Also, be wary of what Erdogan and his people say. He's about as trustworthy as Putin, and when he calls those organizations "Terrorists" or that Sweden and Finland support them, then that's actually quite far from the truth and he wants something much less palatable.
Sweden is lucky that Erdogan is in power and he'll bend and do a 180 in a month max. If anyone else was in that position, this would never happen. This topic is probably the only thing that has this much mainstream support since Erdogan came to power.
I very much doubt that these announcements are the _start_ of negotiations.
More likely, the public phase makes the beginning of the end of negotiations for Sweden (and Finland) to join NATO. It would be a co-ordinated, done deal or close to it, before they break cover and announce it to the world, and to Russia specifically.
NATO is not just about Russia. To me, suggesting that Sweden is somehow more strategically important than Turkey is foreign policy illiterate.
Turkey brings a military ~30x the size of Sweden, they are actively involved in being a buffer for conflicts in the Middle East, and they have an advanced military manufacturing capability that they have used to supply Ukraine and others with military drones.
They also have substantial more recent conflict experience and partnerships with affiliates throughout MENA.
Even if NATO was about Russia, Turkey is a much more important buffer to Russian ambitions than Sweden is.
I'm not a particular fan of Turkey, but the only reason we would rather have Sweden over Turkey is due to "soft" cultural, christian, western centrism (calling things racism is taboo on HN so I will refrain).
Yes but it's not just about military size, it's about cooperation. There's no point in having a military that's 30x the size of another one if they don't really cooperate with you.
> calling things racism is taboo on HN so I will refrain
In this case it's because it's just wrong. Sweden is by and large a peaceful, democratic, liberal democracy that has free markets and cooperates with NATO member states on a variety of areas. In other words, the interests and values are very closely aligned. The reason we would have Turkey "out" here is because of a misalignment of values - i.e. Turkey is (or would in this case) diverge from the shared interests of the majority of NATO members. I mean, to point this out from the start there's absolutely no reason for Turkey to object over Sweden joining NATO in the first place. The very act of that objection is a divergence from the rest of the group's shared values.
But this is also mostly a nothing-burger because Turkey's public messaging is different from its private messaging. Erdogan will get an internationally inconsequential bone for domestic audiences and will happily vote Sweden (and Finland) in to NATO.
NATO wouldn't do this without having all the members already in agreement with expansion. That's how things work at this level.
> there's absolutely no reason for Turkey to object over Sweden joining NATO in the first place
This is disingenuous. The YPG question is not "no reason" for Turkey. (I disagree about the reason, but it is still an actual concern for the Turkish government).
> if they don't really cooperate with you.
Turkey absolutely cooperated extensively with the US & NATO. Militarily, much more so than Sweden does.
> This is disingenuous. The YPG question is not "no reason" for Turkey. (I disagree about the reason, but it is still an actual concern for the Turkish government).
I don't view that as a valid reason to object to Sweden joining NATO. Maybe Turkey does, and maybe they won't be in NATO over it by the end of the year? There's 0 chance that Sweden and Finland don't join NATO, regardless of what Turkey publically claims.
> Turkey absolutely cooperated extensively with the US & NATO. Militarily, much more so than Sweden does.
Sure, and that cooperation is expected to continue. Ongoing partnerships have to like, keep going on right? Voting "no" to block Sweden and/or Finland from joining NATO would stop the ongoing partnership and end many elements of cooperation. Frankly, while Turkey is helpful militarily and strategically, the US can do anything in the world it needs to do with or without Turkey. But the one thing the US (and NATO) can't afford is serious dissension in the ranks, and that won't be tolerated regardless of the cost.
It's similar to me with the Taiwan thing. For some crazy reason people think that the US wouldn't go to war with China to defend Taiwan. For a while, people such as myself even were concerned about the Baltic states - then the US and UK moved thousands of troops there. These alliances and commitments are a big deal, especially when genuine strategic interests are at stake amongst nation states.
>Yes but it's not just about military size, it's about cooperation. There's no >point in having a military that's 30x the size of another one if they don't >really cooperate with you.
Well if it prevents them from cooperating with someone else it might still be worth it.
Not only, but for the most part....It's about Russia.
> Turkey brings a military ~30x the size of Sweden
On the other hand Sweden and Finland at 2% GDP has a similar defense budget to Turkey. Money does not a military make, but "30x the size" is only counting manpower and not much else. Modern fighter aircraft is around a factor 2x rather than 30x, for example.
> a buffer for conflicts in the Middle East
> advanced military manufacturing capability
> partnerships with affiliates throughout MENA
These are all very important.
> "soft" cultural, christian, western centrism (calling things racism is taboo on HN so I will refrain).
It's perhaps easier to look at democracy and press-freedom indices then, to see why Turkey isn't like the others. Perhaps that's what you meant? The problem is that undemocratic/authoritarian states tend to be stable, until they suddenly aren't. NATO is supposed to be a partnership of democracies (It's a prerequisite for applying!) so it's safe to say that being not-a-democracy isn't popular once in the alliance either.
So sure, NATO is a defense mechanism for what some would call western (that is: secular, liberal, ...) democracy. That indeed does touch on culture and religion, but only superficially. Turkey has long been the champion of secularism in the area, and obviosuly everyone in NATO (and elsewhere) hopes that will remain the case, hence one is reluctant to push Turkey away too.
>Turkey has long been the champion of secularism in the area, and obviosuly everyone in NATO (and elsewhere) hopes that will remain the case, hence one is reluctant to push Turkey away too.
Exactly. With all the faults of current Turkish government, they are a mile ahead of everyone else in Middle East. The problem is the comparison: they were going forward with EU membership - their government just was way more sane in the past... And there's decent chance that Erdogan will be voted out in 2023.
When they mutually recognize each others occupied lands as "sovereign states" the context would be pretty obvious. (Turkey to recognize the Russian backed separatists in Ukraine and Russia to recognize the Turkish backed separatists in North Cyprus).
Another point of context to you: Russia's narrative for the invasion of Ukraine is copied word by word from the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974.
> Another point of context to you: Russia's narrative for the invasion of Ukraine is copied word by word from the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974.
Super disingenuous considering that Greece was the initial country to invade and that multiple UN-brokered solutions to the problem have been supported by the Turkish side only to have been voted down by Greek cypriots. [0]
Apparently, the Turks included the recognition of the occupied (by them) North Cyprus as one of the terms for agreeing to Sweden and Finland joining NATO.
Enough of the lying propaganda. North Cyprus is by the accession treaties EU territory that the Republic of Cyprus cannot effectively control due to the illegally occupying Turkish troops. Much like the Russian controlled parts of Ukraine.
Numbers speak by themselves: 2000 troops in the South, 40000 troops in the occupied North.
Most people don't realize how important is the "size" of active military for any country.
Turkey is the 2nd most powerful military in NATO after USA. It has access to all modern weapons, manufacturing abilities and above all, centuries of experience in fighting, winning and losing WARS.
Turkey's location is very very important for all kind of military operations and trade via Black Sea.
NATO is 95% about Russia. It actually probably wouldn't exist without Russia because it was starting to get a bit wobbly after the Trumpian regime attempted to dismantle it in the eyes of Americans. Now that we see it is 100% necessary given that Putin has gone of the rails I think it's stronger than it has been since the 70s
Sweden has about zero chance of ever going against American/western Europe, short of having a puppet regime instated by Russia.
Turkey would have zero reason to be pro-west in any way without NATO. They've basically been the one fairly stable Muslim-majority, non-oil dictatorship in the Middle East for decades now and it's much better to keep them as a lukewarm ally than have them be an outright enemy.
Vietnam is in a similar position. They're not exactly friends with the US, but the fact they have more motivation to be anti-China than anti-US is a good reason to not antagonize them. They're a strong antagonist against the US's enemies more than they are a full-on ally of the US, and that's a perfectly fine partnership to have.
Possibly but the fact that Turkey has been a NATO member since the 1960s pretty much makes that "wish" irrelevant or at least not ignorable. Seniority does count for something and ignoring it is great way of destroying a organization/treaty.
Not at all. If Murmansk's importance causes Finland to be strategic then what about Crimea? Turkey blocks Russia's warm water sea access. Much more important for Turkey to be in NATO than Finland purely on the basis of geography.
> What is the point of having a NATO member who illogically rails against new members just because Russia tells them not to?
You, I think, know very little about Turkey's politics to make a claim like that.
PKK & YPG has long been a perceived thorn in Turkey's side and they have largely felt like the rest of NATO has ignored this problem if not actively antagonized them on it.
To them, it's akin to as if the rest of NATO was funding cartels in Mexico.
> getting rid of a prior member of an alliance undermines the very idea and value of the alliance
Not really. It does if one does this after they’re invaded, to evade mutual defence commitments. But acknowledging that there are no longer shared values and providing an off ramp is perfectly fine. Strengthening, even, as it shows heightened resolve to take the commitment seriously.
> not how must treaties work and certainly not how the NATO treaty is written
Most treaties have termination clauses. The North Atlantic Treaty’s Article 13 provides for voluntary exit [1]. (One could argue Ankara’s SS-4 purchase constitutes an Article 8 violation, though this would be petry.)
Treaties are about mutual understanding. If Americans and Czechs would find it unseemly to fight for Turkey’s defence in case of invasion, it does more harm to pretend they’re under collective defence than to amend the treaty to make it extremely clear whom one can invade without getting nuked and whom one cannot.
All this said, I think Turkey should remain a NATO member. They have shown themselves by arming Ukraine and denouncing Putin. They are a founding member. And their position remains strategically critical.
> how would Turkey's s400 purchase be an article 8 violation?
This has been covered in the American refusal to sell Ankara F-35s and ensuing sanctioning of it under CAATSA [1].
In short, no detection system is perfect. And no modern military system is sold without servicing. Letting Russia service an air defence system with the privilege of painting NATO jets, arms and missile defences is a breach of trust. It could be considered, again, pettily, though good luck to those who claims the law is often anything but, “an international engagement in conflict with” Turkey’s NATO obligations.
If any member gets booted out because of ideological differences, no matter the circumstances, other members will necessarily fear the same. This is extremely hard to avoid...
> member gets booted out because of ideological differences, no matter the circumstances, other members will necessarily fear the same
Ejection is a serious thing. Even its deliberation will have the effect you describe.
But anyone pretending NATO is immortal or immutable or above political alignment is naïve. If a member behaves radically differently from the others, will it be politically feasible to send one’s soldiers to their aid in a time of need? If the answer to that question isn’t predictably an unambiguous yes, the treaty should be modified. Leaving Russia to guess whether Estonia is a Britain member or a Hungary member undermines the alliance's deterrence.
These treaties were forged by our parents and grandparents. They’re stronger as living documents than relics.
NATO has no provisions for evicting a member. It would need to form a separate alliance and all the others would join that one and leave NATO. And about the only reason that would conceivably ever happen is if a member grossly violated the values of all the others. Turkey despite being mostly non-democratic isn’t even close I’d imagine.
Formal eviction is not the only option to get rid of someone. The other member states might create circumstances (sanctions...) where Turkey would have to leave NATO "voluntarily".
Another option is if a member state were to commit genocide. In that case the alliance might dissolve and the other members might instead band together and attack that member. Hypothetically speaking.
If NATO is to drop one of its loyal members over such simple request, what would be a reason for anyone to join that "alliance"? They could then as well drop a member that get attacked, instead of invoking Article 5 alliance case.
Strategic importance does not matter much if Finland does not allow the storage of nuclear weapons in their territory. Effective deterrence strategy would require that.
"The problem is that these two countries are openly supporting and engaging with PKK and YPG. These are terrorist organisations that have been attacking our troops every day," Mevlut Cavusoglu said as he arrived in Berlin for a meeting with his NATO counterparts.
"Therefore it is unacceptable and outrageous that our friends and allies are supporting this terrorist organisation," he said. "These are the issues that we need to talk about with our NATO allies as well as these countries" Sweden and Finland, he added.
But Sweden and Finland are NOT "openly supporting" the PKK and YPG. Just copying the Erdogan propaganda is at best lazy. Nor is it correct to label these organizations as entirely "terrorist".
The reality is a lot more complicated, but Erdogan would very much like you to simplify "organized Kurds = Terrorists"...
On the other hand, if the PKK is able to fundraise in Sweden and Finland like the IRA used to be able to in the US, then it seems logical for Turkey to use whatever leverage they have to decrease that activity, similar to GB.
Understand why most people feel this is a slippery slope. If Erdogan says that YPG is the PKK because the YPG politically support the PKK, what's preventing Netanyahu from using the same arguments against its neighbor supporting politically or selling weapons to the Hamas? China attacking India/Nepal for harboring the leader of the Free Tibet movement?
You probably it is not the same, but for many, many people it is.
Also, your example missed the point where the Good friday agreement was drafted with US backing and help. This actually did more for the peace than decreasing fundraisers. Maybe Turkey should learn from this example?
Has the slope already slipped? As far as I can tell Israel regularly conducts air strikes in Syria with a claim that they are against Hamas targets. The US waged war against Taliban b/c of association with Alqaeda.
I’m ask out of moderate ignorance in that I read the claims of Turkey and that of Sweden and Finland without a mechanism for deducing truth beyond various actors’ assertions.
While it would be optimal if Turkey did wage “Good Friday” peace to the extent that it is possible, it doesn’t seem likely since their position in the triad is that of GB, not the US. The non-NATO Nordics are more similar to the role of the US.
You are right, of course that's why I choose this example (forgot about the reason given for the Afghanistan war, good point). I might have poorly explained my second point, but you reformulated it better.
I don't have a solution either. I'll let professional negotiators find one :)
In Turkish propaganda, any form of Kurds organizing themselves, be it inside Turkey our outside in Iran, Iraq or Syria, is "terrorism". Even though most of this activity is political and from a democratic standpoint quite "legitimate". Even much of what the PKK has been doing historically falls under that umbrella.
Also the Kurds are forming a state in parts of Syria and Iraq, where the "original" state is not able to restore order, especially against islamic militants. On top of that, the Turkish security forces have a long history of prosecuting Kurdish civilians. This makes the whole label of "terrorism" extremely murky and what Erdogan wants of NATO is much less nice than support against terrorists: He wants support and acquiescence in his war against Kurdish forces, including outside Turkey.
The history of Turkish forces prosecuting Kurdish civilians makes the whole matter extremely murky. Even the PKK does have quite legitimate and understandable goals and motivations, though it has been criticized for its methods which could be called "terrorism". But the same can be said of the Turkish state.
As a total outsider I see the situation as somewhat related to the Palestinian struggle: The more you are struggling for basic survival in the face of aggression, oppression and poverty, the less energy and motivation there is to curb the excesses of extremists in the own ranks.
I'm very sympathetic to the YPG, and I don't think they are a subsidiary... but any objective observer can see that YPG and PKK are very closely related. They have posters of Abdullah Ocalan everywhere, they have many PKK fighters in their ranks, etc. etc.
1) The PKK is considered a terrorist organistsnion in Sweden, we do not support them in any way and our police tracks PKK activity plus 2) giving in to Turkish demands would be really bad optics for Swedish politicisns so I do not think they will cave. Doing so would risk them the election. I think Turkey will fold.
Nah, and also Turkey (similar to when people argued that Hungary or Croatia would object) would be kicked out of NATO before Sweden and Finland would be prevented from joining.
"But how would they do that? There's no process.. etc."
They can just take a vote and then that's that. Likely Turkey will get some appeasement concessions, but there's no serious risk here.
They'd definitely be kicked out at this point if push came to shove. No doubt about that. There's no value in a member who doesn't cooperate. Both Finland and Sweden are very much aligned with the rest of NATO and if member states object to them joining you basically set the precedent that one member state (that's not the US/UK) can hold the group hostage. There's no way that would be tolerated, regardless of the strategic importance of Turkey.
To your point, they won't say no anyway. All the speculation is, I think, just circus.
I really don't think so. Turkey is in a very strategic location. Turkey has leverage and a very good chance of getting the concessions they want. Which is sad, because I care about the Kurds, and they seemed to be one of the few good, humane groups in Syria.
Also Turkey has the best attack drones now. They beat previous-generation Russian equipment in Nagorno-Karabakh, now they're pretty effective against current Russian equipment in Ukraine. USA and our vassals don't want any of that medicine.
Yea I mean you’re free to disagree or course and we won’t really know for sure until something like this gets tested, but I’ve stated my opinion on the matter and don’t have much else to add.
Turks are trying to establish some diplomatic bridge with Russia; that's very good. Russian aggression in Ukraine is terrible, but I feel the US are not trying to de-escalate anything. They are in full proxy-war mode.
This can be very dangerous for Europe. France and Germany also would like to have more diplomacy, just like Turkey. Those countries have to live next to Russia - and maintaining a diplomatic relationship with Russia is vital. And this despite the fact that current Russian leadership is basically criminal.
I don't think Sweden and Finland joining NATO is sending a good signal - or it's diplomatically wise. But let's see...
And giving up their land and independence is the last thing Ukrainians want, so it sounds like Ukraine and NATO are on the same page in terms of not appeasing a senile tyrant invading a sovereign nation.
It's what 90% of crimeans wanted according to gallup polling.
The way I see it the west either fights for empire or we fight for democracy.
If we fight for democracy then we respect votes we dont like whose results are independently verified by pollsters we trust. Particularly votes that breach the 90%+ threshold. That would match our principles.
In Ukraine neither Kyiv, the west nor Russia fights for democracy though. Everybody fights for power, territory and, ultimately, empire.
No, but I believe referenda should. Ukraine gained its independence that way after all.
The gallup polls simply confirmed that the referendum that was run by Russian troops was more or less free and fair.
I believe this is a good litmus test of peoples belief in democracy as a matter of principle. Belief in democracy means commitment to voting especially when you dont like the result.
A referendum is a far cry from your original suggestion to "officially cede Crimea", though. There can be no legitimate referendum while a territory is under invasion. Suggesting a sovereign nation cede territory to an oppressive dictator who decided to invade it is antithetical to democracy, as is suggesting that said tyrant should be allowed to dictate which defensive alliance it joins.
>A referendum is a far cry from your original suggestion to "officially cede Crimea", though
The referendum already happened. My original suggestion was "respect the result" - what 90% or crimeans also want according to gallup - a western pollster.
What you want is for their votes to be "corrected" to fall in line with strategic imperialist objectives. This is a position Putin would understand and respect.
>There can be no legitimate referendum while a territory is under invasion.
Actually I believe there can under three conditions:
* The population want the referendum.
* The referendum wouldnt have happened without invasion.
* No vote coercion happened as a result of the invasion.
All three conditions held for Crimea, as well as certain other places. These conditions held for Iraq also, for example.
Once again: if you want to anull the results of a referendum because you dont like the result where there is no uncertainty about a free and fair result then you can only pretend to respect democracy.
There is a tension between the concepts of self-determination and territorial integrity that makes the question not so obvious. However the concept of territorial integrity has advantages for weaker nations. If self-determination were absolute then for example the U.S. could get any territory it wanted by using its immense wealth to buy off local residents. I'm sure there are some villages along the Russian border who would be happy to see their land turned into a U.S. military base in exchange for U.S. passports and big piles of money.
>If self-determination were absolute then for example the U.S. could get any territory it wanted by using its immense wealth to buy off local residents.
I mean, yeah. Thats how panama was born for example. Colombia was kinda mad about it at the time but of all the things the US gets shit for its not even in the top 10.
The US also tried to do something similar (and failed) to Kaliningrad. Only Russia objected.
Theres a pretty long history of the US doing this and nobody really minding.
>I'm sure there are some villages along the Russian border who would be happy to see their land turned into a U.S. military base in exchange for U.S. passports and big piles of money.
I wouldnt be so sure. Argentina tried the same thing with the falklanders and it didnt work. Likewise Trump with Greenland.
Villages also wouldnt survive if they were severed economically.
Crimea wasnt bought, anyway. It's just 90% ethnically Russian and objected vociferously to the maidan.
The U.S.'s historical strategy has been to find or create some credible faction wherever it wanted to meddle and then support it using any means necessary, ethical or otherwise, and coerce other countries to go along with it. In purely internal matters such as against the Native American populations it sometimes bothered with some fig leaf legal cover but other times it would just take what it wanted in the most brutal ways possible. I don't think it's ever actually fairly bought off a population though, so that's not really the same thing.
You framed your earlier comment as being about democracy without qualifications. I'm wondering how far you'd go with that. Is every border territory only a 50.1% vote away from changing countries? How often can these votes be held? Do they require international observation?
>You framed your earlier comment as being about democracy without qualifications. I'm wondering how far you'd go with that. Is every border territory only a 50.1% vote away from changing countries?
I dont know if 50.0% deserves to be the threshold but whatever the threshold is Im damn sure it's below 90%.
>How often can these votes be held?
Not sure if theres a clear answer to that. If enough of the population wants a vote i guess there should be one.
If there is one and 90% arent voting for the status quo there clearly needed to be one.
>Do they require international observation?
Ideally. I'd love to see international observers in all elections. Would be great if e.g. Venezuelan election observers got to monitor US elections.
If observers are absent and theres no evidence of fraud or coercion though thats not a good enough reason to reject a vote, especially when the result isnt close.
In crimea i find the "international observers" argument especially disingenuous though. The two sides were "referendum without western observers" (Russia) and "no referendum at all, ever" (Kyiv/West).
Ive heard hundreds if not thousands of people reject the idea that the crimean referendum was valid because of a lack of western observers. Not a single one of them rejected kyiv's position that there shouldnt be a referendum at all.
> I dont know if 50.0% deserves to be the threshold but whatever the threshold is Im damn sure it's below 90%.
The normal legality is that a state is governed by a national constitution that requires some supermajority to make major changes. Participating in a government formed by that constitution implies consent to it. If Ukrainian Crimea wanted to leave Ukraine then they could have looked for national support according to both regular and constitutional law. If they couldn't get the national votes then that's all there is to it. Democracy in action.
There are areas in the U.S. that heavily favor one party or the other, including rural border counties that went for Trump well over 80% in 2020. If one of these counties voted to secede after Biden won, that vote would simply have been illegal under laws they themselves had previously consented to. If prior to the secession vote some other country had sent passports and then troops to seize government buildings and "secure fair elections" or whatever, that would have been both ridiculous and hostile.
> Ideally. I'd love to see international observers in all elections. Would be great if e.g. Venezuelan election observers got to monitor US elections.
Venezuelans or most anyone else are free to come into the U.S. and observe voting stations from the outside like any other private person who isn't actively casting a vote, and conduct whatever exit polls they can convince people to take.
Even if you accept that votes can be taken by anybody and whenever, yes, you need international observer. Otherwise the vote will go the direction of whoever can coerce the locals the hardest. That's not democracy, that's not "the will of the people", that's a sham.
Gallup asked crimeans were asked if they believed it was a sham and 90% said no.
85% agreed with the result.
Russia didnt run that poll. We did. No troops were standing behind the answerers. It agreed entirely with the result of the referendum.
If we hypothesize coercion or fraud in crimea the poll would have disagreed with the results. It didnt.
Coming up with ever thinner pretexts for rejecting the result of this referendum is simply a rejection of democracy - that thing we are supposed to be fighting for.
If the majority want to exterminate a minority, sure. Democracy doesnt mean that they should be allowed.
If "whatever they want" means independence and self determination then yes, either you believe they should have it or you give democracy the middle finger.
Theres no middle ground there.
Some people think ukraine should be run from Moscow and fuck what anybody in ukraine thinks. Some people think crimea should be run from Kyiv and fuck what anybody in Crimea thinks. They both hate democracy.
The de-escalation is simple, Russia leaves all parts of Ukraine that is has occupied since 2014. It return they stop losing troops and armour at a rate which will end their armies existence entirely before the end of the year.
You know what country also lies next to Russia? Ukraine. Maybe ask them what they think of using diplomacy here.
What kind of de-escalation is possible when it's Russia attacking the Ukrainian territory? Also it's not like RF can be trusted to stick to agreements, so what's the point in talks?
Previous attempts of de-escalation have gone nowhere: Russia continues to attack its neighbours and annex their territory, or create puppet separatist states (Moldovan Transnistria in 1992, Georgian South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 1990s and 2008, Ukrainian Crimea and Donbass in 2014 and now the entire territory of Ukraine).
If the Russians had succeeded with Ukraine, Lithuania or Poland would be next. Or Finland, or Sweden, or any other neighbour Russia deems weak enough to conquer with direct military force. You get my point.
Russian territorial expansion is a recurring pattern, and no amount of western self-humiliation via "de-escalation" was going to end it.
It had to end somewhere. As a Ukrainian who had to spend several weeks in evacuation in Lviv this spring, I'm glad it ended in Ukraine. (At least the new US Lend-Lease Act gives us hope that the wave of Russian territorial expansion will end in Ukraine.) Otherwise we'd have mass executions of civilians, as we had in Bucha, all over the 40 million country. A new Holocaust. For Ukrainians, as a nation, US Lend-Lease Act, military equipment aid from UK and other western nations who participated in Ramstein defence conference is the real salvation. And the day the Russian invaders are expelled would become a second Independence Day, as in the history of Kuwait and Iraq.
If you don't want a hegemonic superpower to gain additional power through protection rackets, then don't invade sovereign nations because you have cancer and want to feel better about yourself.
Yeah, I wonder about that. Suppose Russia nuked some allied target. Is the USA willing to escalate to global nuclear war over that? Something tells me they won't come to anyone's aid.
All the US wants is for Russia to get out of Ukraine. They have not been there in decades. It's an easy request. France and Germany know that if Putin gets anything out of this he'll just attack Ukraine (even if he pulls out today) again until he gets what he wants.
He is likely worried that Ukraine's fierce resistance to the genocide of her people will cause him mild inconveniences. Of course, admitting that would make him look bad so he tries to warp it into some sort of moral principle. I've seen it an awfully lot recently and I think it is pathetic.
This is great news. I don't think Turkey will be able to stop this considering how pissed off other members are at Russian genocide and belligerence. Seems Turkey doesn't mind that...
... any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
I had never read that definition, and it seems way too broad to be what most people mean - according to this definition, killing 20 Christians on purpose is considered a genocide?
Indeed, from later in the article:
> While mass killing is not necessary for genocide to have been committed, it has been present in almost all recognized genocides.
Given the large civilian graves, the bombing of shelters, the forced deportation of Ukrainians to Russia, the theft of children…there doesn’t seem to be a reasonable argument that this isn’t genocide.
If you have a neighbour that invades sovereign countries, it makes sense to seek strong allies. This is a direct result of Russia invading Ukraine, it doesn't matter how much Russia complains now.
This whole thing has made me reevaluate the way the Cuban Missile Crisis is portrayed in the U.S. It's usually held up as an example of great presidential leadership, with almost no push back.
But if you look at the history it's fascinating. The U.S. launched an invasion to try to overthrow the Cuban government during the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. Then it moved nuclear missiles up to the USSR's border in Turkey (the U.S. was also considering nuclear first strikes against the USSR around this time[1]). Then Cuba asked for the USSR to station nuclear missiles to deter an invasion, the USSR complied, which triggered the crisis. The world was brought to the brink of nuclear war as the U.S. blockaded the country and prepared for an invasion if its demands weren't met.
This isn't to defend the current invasion, just to see how these kinds of actions can be celebrated in a country to the extent that most of the citizens don't even have the slightest idea that they could be anything but a heroic defense of homeland. Sometimes it's only when a mirror is held up to us that we're really able to look at things from another angle.
> It's usually held up as an example of great presidential leadership, with almost no push back.
Where did you get this impression? In my US public school we learned all about the Bay of Pigs. If anything, my takeaway was that Kruschev saved us all by publicly backing down to his own political detriment, whereas Kennedy was only willing to make his concessions in secret.
Is that how the Cuban missile crisis is taught in the US? It certainly is different than what I learned in school ( ex-communist country). It was presented with much more nuance, starting with the backstory that the US had missiles in Turkey and Italy, so them blowing off due to missiles in Cuba was highly hypocritical.
Same. The resolution of missile crisis itself is lauded as a policy victory only in contrast to and a result of presidential lessons learned in the disastrous bay of pigs invasion.
It's a pretty common view of what happened (personally, my history classes never reached the Cold War, so I can't say how it's taught). This video[1], which aims to debunk the common interpretation, gives a decent overview at the beginning of how people usually view the event (I'm not a big fan of the channel in general, just using it as an example of how the event often gets viewed).
Yeah what often is missed is that as part of agreement the missiles from Turkey were removed, effectively increasing US security and lowering European one. That's why to me it is being quite concerning the fact that in the current scenario the interests of US establishment are matched by the idea of European interests while it is not like that and can't never be, if anything because you can't really get around geography and if we get to the point where each ones has nuclear warheads pointed at each other, despite the way it could look, it would be very bad, so I hope that Zelensky, Johnson and Biden get isolated by Europeans, and countries like Italy (I hope) chose to get out of NATO
> effectively increasing US security and lowering European one
Not really, there were still missiles in Italy and maybe Germany? It made little real difference to European security.
> Zelensky, Johnson and Biden get isolated by Europeans, and countries like Italy (I hope) chose to get out of NATO
Russia invading Ukraine, showing that European peace and security aren't as guaranteed and certain as most people thought is only bringing NATO and more specifically European NATO members together. Italy isn't on the frontlines, but is also impacted by Putin's idiocy. Why would it abandon one of it's two security guarantees (EU being the other one) now? Before the invasion, EU countries moving to a NATO independent military cooperation and defense pact would have made great sense ( and certain EU leaders were pushing for it), but now? No way.
The relation between Finland and Sweden is such that if Finland would be invaded Sweden would send troops to help. The idea that Finland, Norway and Denmark could be invaded again like in ww2 and Sweden just standing neutral has both ideologically and practically been abandoned.
Which is probably the secret sauce for their "neutrality" during WWII. It's easier to "not choose sides" when Finland is slowing down the Soviets in the east, and Norway/Denmark slowing down the Nazis in the west and south.
unless said neighbor is the current hegemonic nation, in which case you better make sure you buy/sell oil in dollars and that your national bank is independent from your government (you know, just to be safe).
i.e. if the USA invades sovereign nations then it makes sense to be in good terms with them.
Such a demand is pretty clearly impossible to accept as a peace condition as it would just expose Ukraine to more Russian coercion in the future. Russia also demanded a categorical end to NATO expansion including in Sweden and Finland.
Says who? Reports on the peace deal were that Ukraine had agreed to this point. Also “We might get invaded/bombed in the future” is a strictly better outcome than “we are being bombed right now”
So instead of affirming your sovereignity and your ties to the West, you would cut your ties? I think it has proven useful to have those ties when the invasion is on. If it doesn't come to an invasion, Russia kills you slowly with a strong embrace.
Being neutral means having ties with everyone, not just the West. Austria is a good example for this, we decided to be neutral and were between East Bloc and West during the cold war and all related tensions, yet never worried due to strict neutrality and good relations with both sides.
Finland and Sweden did the same, until now. Easy for Austria to keep it that way now that they are a member of EU and completely surrounded by NATO countries.
And in Ukraine we see that this strategy does not work when your neighbor is murderous.
Yeah, it's a bit strange to claim this. NATO has never taken membership from a country actively involved in conflict and Ukraine had been left out of NATO specifically to not inflame Russia.
Putin is obsessed with reunification and anything that doesn't give him that, he isn't interested in. He'd roll tanks right up to the Berlin wall if he thought he could.
And your friends have nukes pointed at the neighbors house - perhaps the neighbour wants to mind his words lest his house be turned in a glassed skate park.
So your friend is willing to risk planetary destruction over a friends list dispute with your neighbor? I'd think thrice before relying on them when such stakes are on the table.
Well, the neighbour that doesn't like my friends broke into my house repeatedly, stole my last food a couple of times, kidnapped several household members, raped my wife and my kid; and now threatens to burn the whole city down if I don't give up my new friends that protect my house.
So yes, lets' burn the city down, why should I live in hell and fear - it's better that no one lives, including the asshole neighbour.
So what? All that is nothing compared to the literal destruction of this planet. Better to let them walk all over you than risk destroying the world everybody lives in. I seriously doubt there is a single person in america willing to accept even the possibility of being utterly annihilated by nuclear fire over some foreign european nation. War against Vietnam or Iraq is one thing, war against Russia is on a completely different category.
> Better to let them walk all over you than risk destroying the world everybody lives in
It's very easy to ask others to be meek, why don't you offer yourself to Russians to walk them over you? I mean, Russia would be very happy to have Alaska, perhaps you should offer it to them so they don't destroy the world.
> ... doubt there is a single person in america willing to accept ...
Thankfully there are several european nations with independent nuclear capability willing to stand up for Ukraine.
> why don't you offer yourself to Russians to walk them over you? I mean, Russia would be very happy to have Alaska
I'm brazilian. We don't have nuclear weapons. We barely even have a space program. If USA wanted to take the Amazon, I doubt there's anything we could do about it and I seriously doubt anyone else would intervene in our favor.
> Thankfully there are several european nations with independent nuclear capability willing to stand up for Ukraine.
Yeah. So are they really going to risk getting nuked out of existence over Ukraine? I suppose we'll find out.
Having lived under Russian oppression during Soviet times, I can tell you that certainly I would prefer nuclear annihilation to being under the russian boot again. And I have small kids. Perhaps especially because I have small kids.
The question becomes what sort of world do we want for our children: one where nuclear-armed nation-states simply take what they want (and remember, it’s not just Russia and the U.S. who have nuclear weapons) because it’s better to appease them?
The mere existence of nuclear weapons means that our future is in jeopardy. That bell can’t be unrung. But it doesn’t mean we have to allow the fear of that hypothetical future to prevent us from standing up to genocide.
The very concept of a nuclear country being "pushed" (what does that even mean?) to wage a war against a country, which is more than 3x smaller in population and around 5x weaker economically, is simply delusional.
Russia attempted to wage a 19th century style conquest: brutal and open territorial grab including the subjugation and repression of the local population.
Yeah, when you have that much more power (or at least believe to), it's more about opportunity. Russia had an opportunity to invade because Ukraine was not part of NATO yet, and probably had rebuilt their forces (they seem to be waging a war every 6-8 years).
Any attempt to legitimize their attack by pointing to threats they imagine other countries pose to Russia, is easily countered by the very obvious and direct threat that Russia eagerly poses to other countries.
Temporary neutrality is not going to fix this; in 8 years, they're going to try again. All neighbours of Russia would be wise to join a defensive alliance.
The military funded think tank that prescribed all of our actions leading up to this point and accurately predicted Russia's responses disagrees with you.
No one wants direct nuclear war, but they do want to skirt around the edges and expand their power. The US has been in multiple hot proxy wars with Russia, the biggest being the attempted overthrow of Syria.
US leadership from both parties have publicly described Ukraine as a proxy war between the US and Russia. If you're still in the early days of the propaganda where Russia invaded Ukraine totally out of the blue with zero provocation from anyone and the US is just doing their best to protect the innocents, you're way behind.
If we return to where the war started, how did Ukraine first provoke Russia - by hoping to join EU, by existing? Ukraine could have been another non-allied country, but Russia escalated.
Regarding the role of the US and NATO in the conflict: "The interim Yatseniuk Government which came to power initially said, with reference to the country's non-aligned status, that it had no plans to join NATO. However, following the Russian military invasion in Ukraine and parliamentary elections in October 2014, the new government made joining NATO a priority." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO_relations
Russia didn't invade Ukraine "out of the blue". Russia has been at war with Ukraine since 2014, when it occupied and annexed Crimea, and at the same time orchestrated and instigated covert War in Donbas.
You ramble something incoherent about the RAND paper from 2019. Just to clarify this: yes, it is precisely where the defense research should have spent the money following the Russia's aggression.
Because if you're trying to say that US is to blame for this war, here's the newsflash: causal relationships and moral responsibility are not the same thing. Even if you knowingly provoke a criminal to do a crime (for example, by leaving your home unlocked, or by going around a bad neighbourhood in very sexy clothing), it does not in any way absolve him of decision to do the crime.
If we're talking about moral side of thins, then this word should be read as "unjustifiably invaded, violating international law" and US haven't actually done it once in the last 25 years.
> NATO/US is a far greater risk to the world
Only if you invade your neighbours that have defence treaties with US or partake in genocide. Not something that I, or anyone else, minds.
Sweden was an unofficial NATO member anyways. Everybody knew this. They just didn't officially join in order to pretend to be a 'neutral' actor on the world stage, but anyone with a brain should know whose side they are on.
In the modern world, there are only 4 independent states - US, china, russia and north korea. Everyone else is a vassal to some degree or another.
No. They are the most indepedentest of the independent. They only serve one lunatic dictator and his family. And developed nuclear weapons against the wishes of US, china and russia. Can't get more independent than that. It's a country that literally starved itself to stay independent.
NK exists at the behest of China. China wants a buffer between it and South Korea. If that wish were to change, I'd expect NK to be either gobbled up by China or allowed to rejoin with SK.
Who's preventing it from rejoining South Korea? I can infer that China wants it as a buffer to South Korea; but how can China disallow it from joining South Korea?
No. China and NK was created with the backing of the soviet union. They were vassals of the soviet union until they decided not to be. Both china and north korea have been independent actors for a while now. Even before the soviet union collapsed.
> China wants a buffer between it and South Korea.
Why would china want a buffer between it and south korea? You mean between china and the US?
> If that wish were to change, I'd expect NK to be either gobbled up by China or allowed to rejoin with SK.
SK is a vassal of the US. You don't "rejoin" a vassal state. It'll be more likely north korea will one day liberate south korea than anything. South korea has a foreign occupation force. North korea doesn't. Think about it.
> It'll be more likely north korea will one day liberate south korea than anything. South korea has a foreign occupation force. North korea doesn't. Think about it.
LOL. IIRC, about all North Korea has for it (militarily) is MAD with South Korea (thousands of bunkered artillery pieces aimed as Seoul and nukes).
Russia's got a far better military than North Korea, and it's getting torn up in Ukraine. North Korea, in anything resembling its current state, is never going to "liberate" South Korea.
The only dictatorship in South America right now is Venezuela. Bolivia is the next closest country, but I'd be hard-pressed to call it a dictatorship.
Neither of those countries are remotely anything that could be called a US vassal. If anything, they are some of the most reflexively anti-American countries in South America.
No. South korea is a vassal. A vassal of the US. It has american troops occupying it. North korea is opposite of what south korea is. They have no foreign troop occupying it. And if north korea was a chinese vassal, they wouldn't have nuclear weapons. It's funny how people want to ignore the obvious.
> South korea is a vassal. A vassal of the US. It has american troops occupying it. North korea is opposite of what south korea is. They have no foreign troop occupying it.
That's one of your many misunderstandings. The presence of troops does not imply an occupation. If you mistakenly think it does, then (among other things) you'll be unable to perceive alliances.
> The presence of troops does not imply an occupation.
70 years "presence" of troops does.
> If you mistakenly think it does, then (among other things) you'll be unable to perceive alliances.
That's a nice way of saying vassalage.
If it was china occupying south korea for 70 years, we'd call that occupation. If it was russia occupying south korea for 70 years, we'd call that occupation. Somehow, when we do it, it's an "alliance".
> And if north korea was a chinese vassal, they wouldn't have nuclear weapons. It's funny how people want to ignore the obvious.
I agree with this view unfortunately. I find it a very harsh view. It's too harsh for my taste and I have the strongest wish that I didn't view things this way. With that said, the evidence is too strong in my opinion.
The evidence that supports it is that Ukraine was invaded by Russia, because they didn't have nuclear weapons. Ukraine used to have them and they were not invaded then. This means that nuclear weapons act as a deterrent. It also means that promises are not made forever (since Russia promised not to invade Ukraine if they'd give back their nuclear weapons). More importantly, you don't know how long such a promise lasts.
Based on how Russia treated Ukraine we can state:
* Nuclear weapons act as a deterrent. It doesn't matter what treaties and promises are in place. Nuclear weapons will fail as a deterrent if there's a proper defense against it. Currently, there is no proper defense against it. It will be unknown when there will be or if there ever will be.
* Promises and treaties show an intention. That intention may not be acted upon at any given point in time.
We know that North Korea has nuclear weapons. This means that North Korea has a deterrent against any other country including China. Moreover, North Korea has made this deterrent more potent by showcasing it is willing to starve its own population. This means they care less about having nuclear weapons targeted at them than the other way around. To see why this strategy is effective one could read up on the mentality Swiss pikemen in the 15th century [1].
If China invades North Korea, then they better have a way to defend against nuclear weapons. If they don't, then I estimate that they they risk about 50 million to 100 million people directly dying to being severely injured [2], not to mention the nuclear fallout would cause second order effects.
[1] In short: because they were willing to go on suicidal charges against other pikemen of other nations, they became the most feared pikemen to fight against. Fighting against a Swiss unit would mean certain death for both groups of pikemen.
India is still part of the british empire/commonwealth. They gained independence and left the british empire. A few years later, they rejoined it. They actually claim the british queen as their head of state - even if it is ceremonial only.
> This is false. There is a distinction between the Commonwealth in the broader cultural sense (Commonwealth Games, etc.) and the Commonwealth realm.
Look a map of the british empire and see which it resembles - commonwealth realm or the commonwealth? The commonwealth was originally called the british commonwealth and was the successor of the british empire. It was actually an nehru I believe who asked the named be changed from british commonwealth to commonwealth as a face-saving gesture.
Commonwealth realm are the british descendent nations - canada, australia, etc. Commonwealth is the british empire - descendents nations + colonized nations like india.
India is a _republic_ with a president as its head of state. Maybe look into the history of India post-WW2. The Commonwealth of Nations is a _loose_ grouping of independent nations. Not all of which actually had/have any historical association with the United Kingdom.
> No truly independent nation would be part of the commonwealth of nations
In that case no truly independent nation should be a part of the United Nations. The UN has more "power" over its members than the Commonwealth.
> The Commonwealth of Nations is a _loose_ grouping of independent nations. Not all of which actually had/have any historical association with the United Kingdom.
It's the successor of the british commonwealth which is the successor of the british empire. It's pretty much the british commonwealth renamed to the commonwealth because nehru apparently thought it would be too humiliating. The head of the commonwealth is the queen. The leaders of it are the leaders of britain. It is headquartered in london. It's official language is english.
> In that case no truly independent nation should be a part of the United Nations.
Did the UN invade and colonize india for 200 years?
The question is why india would even join the commonwealth? Why are they still in it? No independent nation would ever be part of it. Especially a nation of india's size, history, culture, etc shouldn't be in a "club" led by its former colonial master. Can you imagine china or russia being part of the commonwealth with the british queen as the head?
I'm sorry but this is blatantly false also. The Commonwealth of Nations is a political association as stated in that article you posted but the member nations are not vassals and the queen does not serve as head of state for any of them except the UK
The idea that India is a British vassal state is probably one of the funnier things I've read here recently. I'd love to know the real justification behind why you believe this, but I suspect it's just a combination of ignorance and conspiracy theory
Literally had to log back in after years to state that this is an outrageously wrong claim. India is as independent in its foreign policy and heads of state as it can be. Please stop spreading false information
This seems clearly false for any useful concept of vassaldom. Which of those states dictates the foreign and domestic policies of India, or Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia, or Nigeria, or...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...