Countdown to World War III anyone? Sevastopol seems to want to secede and be annexed by Russia, Russia is redeploying troops to the border and airborne assault forces and the Crimea in general seems to be a tinderbox.
There's also speculation that allowing this move (which seems likely, as it seems to be said that it'ld be a net positive for Ukraine) may be also a precedent to justify annexing the Donbas region as well (again, there seem to be some who suggest this is a net positive for Ukraine).
If things progress will NATO and the EU start drawing red lines and will there be a scramble to avert world war?
You decide, we influence the results.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Countdown to World War III anyone?
not even close
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I think the Crimea only breaks away if Ukraine splits in two for real. If the West breaks away to form its own nation and seeks closer ties to the EU and the East goes to Russia, the East and Russia will get the Crimea.
But there's no way Russia will annex it outright.
Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
I agree with Lyrhawn. Western Ukraine is a completely different country from the East.
I really hope they won't split up. Eastern Ukraine would de facto become a part of Russia. I don't like the way Russia and UE interfere with Ukrainian politics. How Sikorski was talking to the protesters, for example, as if Ukraine was UE's and Russias condominium and not an independent state.How he talks to those people. And, everybody looks at those Majdan guys like they're heroes. I can't see good ones and bad ones here, at all.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
I believe its the Crimea that's smouldering the most of the various regions, being an autonomous republic it has a more independent streak that the eastern regions.
The things that muddle the rightness/wrongness of the situation is the extent that fascists, ukrainian ultranationalists and neonazi's have infiltrated the maidan movement. For example something of a witchhunt has begun for old soviet monuments such as the Red star on the parliament building was removed without an election yet; this along with repealing the language bill that allowed regions to have Russian as an official language are all playing into this and adding to the sense of victimization of the Russophone population.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I'm not really surprised to hear you taking pro-Russian propaganda at face value like this, Elison. I've yet to see credible evidence that there is serious 'inflitration' by fascist, or even that anyone other than pro-Russian outlets are saying so.
I'll just skip the part where I mention how tiresome it is, to simply eat up a Putin-inspired line so readily and endorse it to others, Elison. What next? A stirring defense of the Eurasian Union?
Posted by Aros (Member # 4873) on :
quote:Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar: You decide, we influence the results.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
A friend of mine at school from the Ukraine, feels pretty strongly that the country is going to split, and that her region (South East) should join Russia.
Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I'm not really surprised to hear you taking pro-Russian propaganda
Propaganda or not, there is a lot of truth in this. a) The government was democratically elected. b) People on the streets were trying to bring down this government. I think it is called ochlocracy, not democracy. c) Government was trying to stop the prostests, which is justifiable. Democratic government has every right to protect itself, because it has the mandate of the people. The majority chose them for a period of time. What the whole point of democracy is, otherwise any group of people unhappy with something would have a moral right to overthrow a goverment. d) Polish bus was stopped on the way to Lwów (Lviv), which used to be a Polish city before the war. I visited this city some ten years ago and there are a lot of Polish people there, Polish restaurants, buildings, cemeteries and so on. The bus was stopped, several agressive, armed men came inside and didn't leave until every single Polish person on the bus said "Chwała Ukrainie", the same thing ultranationalist Ukrainians were shouting more than 60 years ago while slaughtering Polish people by tens of thousands in Wołyń. It's one of many examples of antipolish sentiment, but also antiamerican and antirussian most of all, of course. The right wing, who are very active on maidan (and liked more than Klitchko, for example), already said that eastern counties of Poland should be passed to Ukraine, 'cause they are a part of "Ukrainian Legacy". This is an example of how morally corrupt is the maidan opposition.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
The Russian government and pro-Russian sources in Ukraine tell us the protestors are influenced by or comprised of fascists and honest to goodness Nazis. Meanwhile, they instruct their own riot police that they're Jews and Jew-influenced.
Bit of a problem there, right?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
In fairness...they could be Jewish fascists.
Posted by NobleHunter (Member # 12043) on :
Jewish National-Socialists?
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Jewish fascists? Sure, possible both as a potential political movement and when looking at history.
The problem lies in the dual and conflicting explanations. It is basically as close to a paradox as is possible in human interaction for the protestors to be both Jewish and Nazi, and yet this is what's being said-to different people, anyway.
Never a good sign, in fact usually a strong sign of much greater deceit, to tell one audience one cynically manipulative thing, but to tell another audience another contradictory cynically manipulative thing, about the same events. Classic tool of media-minded tyrannies and repressed regimes of all sorts down through the ages.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Countdown to World War III anyone?
not even close
Yeah no. Ukraine will do what it has always done, and replace one god-awful reprehensible con-artist cum politician with another. And 5 years from now, this will be an acid flashback.
I was in Kiev two weeks ago. Horrid, horrid place. I'm not surprised they set it on fire.
I'm sorry, I know that sounded glib. We have family in Kiev, I'm absolutely gutted by what they have to endure in day to day life there.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I think the Crimea only breaks away if Ukraine splits in two for real. If the West breaks away to form its own nation and seeks closer ties to the EU and the East goes to Russia, the East and Russia will get the Crimea.
The EU hardly wants it, anyway. It's a mess, and the people only respond to hard-liner nationalists, who are the only ones not too busy lining their pockets with stolen money to go out and take action. But that's only because they haven't been in a position to steal yet.
quote: c) Government was trying to stop the prostests, which is justifiable. Democratic government has every right to protect itself, because it has the mandate of the people. The majority chose them for a period of time. What the whole point of democracy is, otherwise any group of people unhappy with something would have a moral right to overthrow a government.
No. It is not justifiable to stop protests by changing the constitution and bullying the population with text messages and threats. The government does *not* have a right to protect itself from a petition of redress of grievance. Not anywhere. That is not just government. That is tyranny.
And yes, given the abuses of power Yanukovych perpetrated, and the money he stole from the Ukrainian people, they have every right to demonstrate and to revolt against him. He was not a legitimate leader, and he was not the head of a government with legitimacy.
I'm not going to soft-shoe who we're talking about here. The protesters on the Maiden were replaced by violent ultra-nationalists. This is a fact. But their presence was provoked by the abuse of executive power. That is also a fact. And Yanukovych got exactly what he deserved.
quote: I've yet to see credible evidence that there is serious 'inflitration' by fascist, or even that anyone other than pro-Russian outlets are saying so.
Nobody is really a fascist anymore. Neo-naziism in Eastern Europe is more like soccer hooliganism than politics. But the protests were co-opted by ultra-nationalists- that is clear.
[ February 25, 2014, 05:05 PM: Message edited by: Orincoro ]
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Nationalists is one thing. Heck, if this were an 'Ad Lib International News' game we were playing, I would put 'nationalists' in one of the blank boxes to descibe protestors knowing nothing about even where the protests were taking place.
Nationalists is plausible, and so far as I have read, accurate with respect to a significant portion of the louder protestors.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
There are *many* pictures of the protests with a number of protesters with fascist and neonazi symbols, 11/88 and the cross associated with white supremacy I think? As well as people in the movement idolizing Ukrainian WWII Nazi collaborators; Svoboda I believe is the name of the party in question that's within the movement.
I actually haven't read any government sources, or heck any news media at all; but entirely reading about this from the Eastern European thread at SA.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I've yet to see credible evidence that there is serious 'inflitration' by fascist, or even that anyone other than pro-Russian outlets are saying so.
In fairness, I've seen this in a decent number of pro-Western outlets as well. Its true that the Russian government has been particularly eager to emphasize the charge, but just because people we don't like are claiming something, that doesn't necessarily make the claim incorrect.
quote:Yet, in Ukraine today, it is equally misleading to state that the nationalist right represents a “minor segment” of the current protests. The protest leadership (to the extent that it exists) consists of three opposition parties in parliament – one of which, the Svoboda party, is clearly on the far right. Svoboda, which captured 38 seats and 10 percent of the vote in the last parliamentary elections, until 2004 called itself the Social Nationalist Party of Ukraine and employed neo-Nazi and SS symbols. While the party changed its name and symbols in 2004, Svoboda’s leader, Oleh Tyahnybok, continued to argue that the opposition should fight the “Muscovite-Jewish mafia running Ukraine” and praised the Ukrainian Insurgency Army (UPA) in World War II for fighting “against the Moskali [Muscovites], Germans, Zhydy [Jews] and other scum, who wanted to take away our Ukrainian state.” The party does not hide its glorification of the interwar fascist movement, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). In December they held a torchlight rally on the Maidan to honor the OUN leader, Stepan Bandera, and they regularly fly the red and black flag of the OUN, which has been banned as a racist symbol at soccer matches by FIFA.
The explicit harkening back to the songs, slogans, and symbols of the nationalist movement of the 1930s and 1940s — with its aspiration to achieve an ethnically pure Ukrainian nation-state free of Russians, Jews, and Poles — has been one of the most significant differences between these protests and the Orange Revolution of 2004. The right-wing groups have been particularly active among the organization of the protest movement on the ground, particularly as the number of protesters has dwindled over time and revealed a resilient right-wing core. Svoboda’s deputies control the opposition-occupied Kiev city administration building, its flag is widely visible and a portrait of Bandera hangs in the central hall.
quote:The Russian government has a habit of throwing around labels like this a bit casually, but in this case—while undoubtedly self-serving—it’s not completely inaccurate.
quote:But neither can Klitschko and his fellow politicians easily sever their ties with Pravy Sektor. The group serves some of the uprising’s most essential functions. Its fighters control the barricades around the protest camp in the center of Ukraine’s capital, and when riot police have tried to tear it down, they have been on the front lines beating them back with clubs, rocks, Molotov cocktails and even a few catapults, in the mold of siege engines of the Middle Ages. Around the country, its fighters have helped seize government headquarters in more than a dozen cities. “Pravy Sektor has proved its loyalty to the ideals of freedom,” Yarosh says. “Now we needed to present this movement as a source of leadership.”
This forum should especially like this bit from the slate article
quote:One of the three figures who form the Maidan movement’s unlikely leadership coalition, along with boxer Vitali Klitschko and former Foreign Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, is Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of the nationalist Svoboda party ... The rebranded party’s election to parliament for the first time in 2012 concerned many Ukrainian Jews, though Tyahnybok has unconvincingly defended himself from charges of anti-Semitism, saying, "I personally have nothing against common Jews, and even have Jewish friends, but rather against a group of Jewish oligarchs who control Ukraine and against Jews-Bolsheviks [in the past].”
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar: There are *many* pictures of the protests with a number of protesters with fascist and neonazi symbols, 11/88 and the cross associated with white supremacy I think? As well as people in the movement idolizing Ukrainian WWII Nazi collaborators; Svoboda I believe is the name of the party in question that's within the movement.
I actually haven't read any government sources, or heck any news media at all; but entirely reading about this from the Eastern European thread at SA.
Again though, adoption of fascist symbolism and the weird accoutrements of the far-right wing, including their own weird brand of anti-semitism, is just more of the same balkanized politics of Ukraine.
If you look back at the Nazis themselves, the occult stuff and heavily nationalistic reworking of literature, natural sciences, and political theory was all to serve a sort of smorgasbord of political offerings that were intended to appeal to as many people as possible all at once, and to intimidate anyone else who disagreed with a torrent of falsehoods cloaked in the false sophistication of academic and bureaucratic trappings. The level of cynicism involved is unparalleled in modern history.
But I think this situation is different. While you have the same national humiliation and existential angst that threatened the German recovery in the 1930s, there is not a national memory of a time in which Ukraine was a world power, and there is not the sense that the Ukrainians have a strong ethnic identity, especially in the East. Even if these radicals could get themselves into power in the west, they would be small potatoes in between Nato to the left, and Russia to the right. Where does radical nationalism actually lead Ukraine, when their economic fortunes don't rely, as Germany's did in the 1930s, on freeing themselves of foreign entanglements, but rather rationalizing those entanglements to their greater advantage?
The Nazis had a calling of sorts in the 1930s, even if the ground was quickly softening for nationalism: the Germans were humiliated, defeated, exploited, and enslaved to the Detente after the first war, but they had kept in-tact almost everything that they needed to be an industrial power. Ukraine is literally crumbling, and its debt is mostly self-inflicted, a symptom of decades of levels of cronyism and corruption the likes of which few European countries have ever experienced, including even Russia. They have no confidence in themselves as a nation, for good reason. There is no calling in Ukraine for nationalism. You have to see yourself as a nation first.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
The little brother can never be ahead of the bigger brother. -Confucius Says.
Except for mine Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
The Russian military is transporting troops to Crimea.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Well. That escalated fast.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Doesn't surprise me. I'll be very surprised if the US manages to act in a multi-lateral way towards keeping Ukraine from descending into civil war, with Russia heavily financing the separatists.
It wouldn't even be a difficult proposition had we not blown our loads in two 10 year wars.
[ March 01, 2014, 01:04 AM: Message edited by: BlackBlade ]
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
Yeah the commentary I've been reading is that Putin say Bush fragrantly violating international law and instituting right makes right diplomacy and is just running with that as the status quo; while Obama wants to bring it back to the 1990's where everything should be done in consensus with regional organizations and collective security arrangements.
Essentially its Bush's fault.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I can't even tell if you're serious, or which would surprise me more-if you were or weren't.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
I can't speak to Blayne, but we certainly have egg on our face going into Iraq while snubbing the UN because we wanted to "secure" our country from a imagined threat.
Little surprise Russia sees that as a legitimate action.
Anyway, Russia has quickly authorized the use of force in Ukraine, let's see how our Congress responds.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Obama will use the security agreement we have with the Russians from the nineties as a pretext for action.
International authority will be useless here. Russia will veto anything that comes before the security council. This will have to be a NATO action.
Russia's most vested interest is a port for the Black Sea fleet. They'd probably be satisfied with the Crimea. But I don't see them annexing the whole country.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
Neither NATO nor the Obama administrations wants a war with Russia over Crimea. There's generally a reason why countries like Georgia or Ukraine weren't invited into NATO.
It comes down to Russia caring more about Ukraine than NATO does.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I don't think either NATO or the US would go to war over Ukraine.
Fortunately, we have more levers to pull at our disposal than just the one that sends in the tanks. Putin's lucky this didn't happen three months ago. We'd have all boycotted the Olympics, AGAIN. I actually wonder if that was part of his calculus in not sending in troops to prop up Yanukovich when he was still in control in Kiev. He didn't want their Olympics to fall apart because of military action the way it did last time they held one.
But maybe we kick Russia out of the G8. Maybe we sanction their oil exports. Maybe we can convince Europe to do something regarding oil and gas imports. There are a lot of things we can try that will hurt them economically or politically that don't involve US drones and tanks in Kiev. We didn't really do anything for Georgia. Ukraine will get more attention.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Re: passing something in the United Nations
Keep in mind that the general assembly can pass something with a majority as well and that cannot be vetoed. Might actually have a good chance of passing since the US is asking to stop an invasion rather than start one.
On the other hand, apparently the the last time this happened, the Soviet Union ignored it.
On the other other hand, given how much Afghanistan injured them its probably a good thing they ignored it.
So it really boils down to how much the US wants to be involved.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
i more or less agree with this long and short of it from NPR's Week in Politics:
quote:BLOCK: David Brooks, how do you see this playing out?
BROOKS: You know, we've ended the inspiring people in the square part of this thing, and now we're in the money and fear part of this thing, where there's going to be a struggle. Putin is not going to let Ukraine go. He's probably not going to let it split up. He's certainly not going to let Crimea go. And so he's going to interfere in the electoral law, and now he's going to start intimidating people.
And then that'll be followed in the months ahead by an attempt to just bribe Ukraine back into the Russian orbit. Ukraine is basically an economic basket case of a country headed for bankruptcy. And so for the U.S., there's going to have to be two strong prongs. The first prong is going to have to be some reasonably tough confrontation with Putin about just the thuggery that's about to go on, and the second, there's going to have to be an IMF offer, a significant offer, far more than we've done in the past, to match the $15 billion that Putin pledged a couple months ago. And so it's going to take some reasonably strong U.S. and Western action to counter what Putin is already in the middle of doing.
BLOCK: And E.J., when David talks about a strong confrontation toward President Putin by the U.S. government, the president and secretary of state, think about that reset that we had been hearing about with the Russian authorities. Do you think that the United States is in a position to have that confrontation?
E.J. DIONNE: Well, I don't know what kind of confrontation we can have because the U.S. and the Europeans do not seem willing to send troops into Ukraine, and there are good reasons for that, and the question is will President Putin. I mean, it's clear that the Europeans and the U.S. through the IMF should be willing to put up some real money to create an economic option for Ukraine to face West, as so many Ukrainians, particularly in the western part of the country, want to do.
But this is a very divided country. The Crimea was traditionally Russian. It's dominated by people who are Russian. And that's why all this is going on probably with some help from Putin. And when you looked at election returns in the Ukraine, it was again deeply divided with the east voting for more Russian-oriented politicians, the west voting for more Western-oriented politicians.
And it's a kleptocracy. It's a - there's enormous corruption that's holding down that economy. So this is not going to be easy, but I do hope that we do not sort of shy away from trying at least to create this economic option for them.
BLOCK: But David, do you think the U.S. has that political leverage with Putin that you were alluding to?
BROOKS: Well, it depends. He's got a lot of leverage on us, frankly, because he can say, well, if you're tough to me on Ukraine, then I'm not going to be very helpful on Syria and Iran and maybe other parts of the world you care a little more about right now.
But we do have - there's a lot of economic sanctions. Russia is basically a failed state run by a narcissistic autocrat and exploiting the failure of that state should be something that's possible to do. Let's face it, the Russians take most of their money, and they send it abroad, as the Ukrainian oligarchs do. The Ukrainian oligarchs create 80 percent of that economy, roughly. And so because their money is here, presumably we have some leverage over them.
DIONNE: Although the difficulty is I think Putin in the long run is in trouble because that regime and that economy is in trouble. But I'm not sure how quickly that long run is going to get here.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Mucus -
Sure, they GA can pass anything it wants, but as you said, it's non-binding. That's the difference between a GA and SC vote. SC actually has some force of law. GA is purely symbolic.
Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
Do you think there's going to be a 2008-Georgia-like conflict now? With Russian Duma backing Putin with the whole invasion thing? And 6000 troops in Crimea, several hundred attacking a border checkpoint?
I mean, Ukraine has a really formidable military force, one of the largest in Europe. If it started it could be a really bloody conflict on the border of NATO.
Oleh Lashko just said: "Russia declared war on Ukraine". He is not a member of the govermnent, but still.
Man, it's getting more dangerous here in Europe.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I'm not sure if it'll be like Georgia because Georgia was a pushover. The Russian military is formidable, but a lot of their stuff is in a pretty dismal state of disrepair. They have a lot more brush fires to put out than the average state, and most of their state of the art stuff has been ruined in Chechnya over the last decade and change.
I think what happens depends a lot on what Ukraine decides to do. Once the first shots get fired and returned, it becomes unwieldy.
But something else to consider is what the Ukrainian military will even do. It's led by Yanukovich's handpicked man. He could be fired I suppose. Half the army is conscripts, half of which probably don't much care to fight at all let along fight against Russia. The other half of the army isn't paid well when they are paid at all. So there's a real question as to what they'll do if Russia invades.
And Elison, Ukraine WAS invited into NATO. Yankukovich declined, and the Parliament voted to move them away from Western alignment in favorite of a Russian orientation. I don't know about Georgia, but it's not really in Europe, so I'm not sure how relevant it is.
Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
On one side Ukraine just proved to be a very young and adolescent nation (like changing their constitution over just couple of weeks of unrest). One the other side Ukraine, even though the second poorest country in Europe, it is a civilized, close-to-western country. It's all happening in our backyard. I was out partying with some Ukrainian folks one month ago, here in Warsaw. Our languages are so similar we can communicate with no problem whatsoever.
I just came home from a dinner, turned the news on. It's like, so unreal, a war just over the border. And everybody here supposes that for an average US citizen Ukraine is just a part of former USSR and it's almost like a Third World Country. But it's not.
I am pretty sure if Russia invaded Poland the way they just invaded Ukraine to "protect Russians on foreign soil", no-one would bat an eye, either. NATO-shnato, no one gives a damn.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
Um no, that's wrong. Ukraine was offered an association agreement with the EU, NATO expansion was never offered to Ukraine.
quote: At the NATO summit 2008 (3 April) NATO decided it will not yet offer membership to Georgia or Ukraine.[34] Resistance was reportedly met from France and Germany.
Europe is dependent on oil and natural gas imports from Russia, it would massively hurt many European countries economically to sanction Russia, so its not happening.
Neither will Russia be expelled from the G8 because Russia is too important in the current economic climate for stability. "Too big to fail" etc etc.
The problem with the IMF is that its monetary offers are tied with conditions; i.e: Austerity measures that would've been political suicide and that situation so far hasn't changed. So the IMF and the EU would need to develop something like a Ukrainian Marshall Plan, a huge lumpsum of money for redevelopment and avert bankruptcy, no budget cuts.
e: Oh no, people would totally fight Russia over Poland.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: I can't speak to Blayne, but we certainly have egg on our face going into Iraq while snubbing the UN because we wanted to "secure" our country from a imagined threat.
Little surprise Russia sees that as a legitimate action.
Anyway, Russia has quickly authorized the use of force in Ukraine, let's see how our Congress responds.
Well sure-Bush bears some responsibility for Russia and Putin thinks this is acceptable, due to the war in Iraq (and potentially, to some, Afghanistan). That's a radically different statement than the one I was responding to, but with him that's pretty par for the course hence my lack of surprise in either direction.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Expelling Russia from the G8 does nothing to the world economy. "Too big to fail" suggests that kicking them out of the G8 will cause them to fail. Most political scientists and economists already consider Russia a mostly failed state kleptocracy. The G8 is really the G7. Russia was invited as a courtesy to be nice.
The EU could work out a much more advantageous loan to Ukraine that would have conditions attached, but ones that would actually help rather than hurt Ukraine. Ukraine isn't Greece. It's not a bailout to save the Euro.
Posted by vineyarddawg (Member # 13007) on :
You know, if you decode the phrase "President Averell Torrent" using an advanced 128-bit decryption cypher, it spells "Barack Obama Builds Empire."
There are 23 letters in each phrase, and the original European Illuminati Society had 23 foundational pillars, represented by 23 points on the famous "Illuminati triangle."
What does this mean? OSC IS ILLUMINATI AND IS HELPING BARACK OBAMA BUILD AN EMPIRE BY USING THEIR COVERT OPERATIVES IN RUSSIA TO CREATE A FAKE GLOBAL CRISIS.
/adjusts tinfoil hat
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
what about Ukraine inspires us to take on Ukraine as a receiver of aid?
I understand the thwarting russia's latest tinpottery part of it but honestly Ukraine seems like a total crapbasket right now aaaand
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
With a lot of potential. A popular uprising in a western-leaning European population.
They need a lot of reforms, mostly to their government and economy, but we're supposed to support that sort of thing. I mean REALLY support it, not invasions, not paying off dictators in the name of stability, but real, honest to goodness support of democracies on the edge who could really use a little guidance and a little cash to put them in the right direction and our sphere of friendship.
Does that mean we open the endless spigots and pour money down the drain? No, though our foreign aid budget is already pitiful. But it does mean they deserve a real shot if they're serious about turning away from Russia.
If we support freedom and democracy and all that other crap we keep saying or thinking, and seriously, this is one of the few times in the last ten to fifteen years I feel like we can actually do something about it in a concrete way, then its incumbent upon us to do it.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
China has issues a statement criticising Russia;
I don't know whose side I'm supposed to be on now! Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Re: financial aid
It seems like Ukraine was a pretty bad investment in the past and that was before they put neo-nazis into their government cabinet. Seems like a pretty bad deal.
quote: The International Monetary Fund has extensive experience lending to Ukraine in recent years. It’s not a track record favoring the country as it seeks aid to stave off default. Twice since 2008, the IMF froze loans to the former Soviet republic after governments at the time balked at measures they had agreed to carry out. After failed attempts to revive loan talks with Ukraine, the Washington-based lender concluded in December it shouldn’t commit as much money to nations that don’t embrace economic change. ... “I will be probably the most unpopular prime minister in the whole history,” Yatsenyuk told Parliament before being approved yesterday, heralding decisions on cuts in subsidies and welfare payments and later calling his job a “political kamikaze” mission. “But we will do everything possible to avoid default.”
The IMF has heard such promises before.
In loans dating back to 1994, “usually the IMF had made two quarterly disbursements and then stopped because the Ukrainian government has refused to comply with the IMF conditions,” said Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Sure, they GA can pass anything it wants, but as you said, it's non-binding. That's the difference between a GA and SC vote. SC actually has some force of law. GA is purely symbolic.
Symbolic or not, apparently this route has been used before to authorise the deployment of troops in Egypt http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_377 so it conceivably be used as a way to authorise troop deployments in Ukraine ... if someone really wanted to.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:"You just don't in the 21st Century behave in 19th Century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped-up pretext," Mr Kerry told the CBS program Face the Nation.
Heh, I'll just put this here Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
Ironic given US history but I'm willing to give the Democratic Administration some slack as their trying to return to the 1990's.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus:
quote:"You just don't in the 21st Century behave in 19th Century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped-up pretext," Mr Kerry told the CBS program Face the Nation.
Heh, I'll just put this here
It's ironic for the US, maybe, but I think Kerry has more credibility on this particular issue than most people.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Because he would know what it's like to vote in favour of wars on completely trumped-up pretexes? Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
To be fair, I do believe that many representatives Republican and Democrat were lied to so as to secure their votes. I don't believe many of them would have voted to invade Iraq if it was clear there were no WMDs and it was all a pretext the Bush administration was using to go to war.
I can't say I would expect that to be true in Russian politics.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Because he would know what it's like to vote in favour of wars on completely trumped-up pretexes?
The pretexts in question having been trumped up to secure his vote in their favor.
There's a thing about politics: you don't always have to be right, but you do always have to be wrong for the right reasons.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Because he would know what it's like to vote in favour of wars on completely trumped-up pretexes?
I think if you go back and check Kerry's record, you might find that's not fair. Congress was lied to, outright, to secure their votes. And many Democrats, perhaps most vocally Kerry, voted with the understanding that the use of force he was approving was to be used as a stick to get Saddam into line, not a blank check for immediate invasion. We're forgetting or ignoring some of the facts from 10 years ago.
Furthermore, the man ran on an anti-war platform at a time when it wasn't really popular nationally.
You're talking as if he was at his computer falsifying documents and signing invasion orders as a willing participant in immediate invasion. That's not at all what happened, and he and a lot of others felt incredibly burned by what went down and how it went down.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: To be fair, I do believe that many representatives Republican and Democrat were lied to so as to secure their votes. I don't believe many of them would have voted to invade Iraq if it was clear there were no WMDs and it was all a pretext the Bush administration was using to go to war.
Of course it should also be noted that the pretext was fairly transparent, offered by an administration that was widely known to be incompetent, and that disbelief in the US pretext was common across the entire world.
For example:
quote:Perhaps even worse than the strain of “nobody-could-have-known” excuse-making invoked by Burns is the claim that “nobody could have known” that Iraq did not really have WMDs. Contrary to the pervasive self-justifying myth that “everyone” believed that Saddam possessed these weapons — and thus nobody can be blamed for failing to realize the truth — the evidence to the contrary was both public and overwhelming. Consider the March 17, 2003, Der Spiegel Editorial warning that “for months now, Bush and Blair have been busy blowing up, exaggerating and deliberately over-interpreting intelligence information and rumours to justify war on Iraq,” or a September 30, 2002 McClatchy article — headlined: “War talk fogged by lingering questions; Threat Hussein poses is unclear to experts” — which detailed the reasons for serious skepticism about the pro-war case.
Or simply recall the various pre-war statements by the ex-Marine and U.N. weapons inspector for Iraq, Scott Ritter (“The truth of the matter is that Iraq has not been shown to possess weapons of mass destruction, either in terms of having retained prohibited capability from the past, or by seeking to re-acquire such capability today”), or Howard Dean in his Drake speech (“Secretary Powell’s recent presentation at the UN showed the extent to which we have Iraq under an audio and visual microscope. Given that, I was impressed not by the vastness of evidence presented by the Secretary, but rather by its sketchiness“). All of that, too, was brushed aside by government officials and suppressed and even mocked by most of the American media, all of whom were determined to allow nothing to impede the march to war. Rather than take responsibility for their failings, they instead insist — as Burns did today — that they could not have known.
The other seven nations of the G8 have, for the moment, canceled the upcoming summit in Sochi. And the West seems to be coalescing around a program to come up with major funding for Ukraine's new government.
Talk is turning now to sanctions.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus:
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: To be fair, I do believe that many representatives Republican and Democrat were lied to so as to secure their votes. I don't believe many of them would have voted to invade Iraq if it was clear there were no WMDs and it was all a pretext the Bush administration was using to go to war.
Of course it should also be noted that the pretext was fairly transparent, offered by an administration that was widely known to be incompetent, and that disbelief in the US pretext was common across the entire world.
For example:
quote:Perhaps even worse than the strain of “nobody-could-have-known” excuse-making invoked by Burns is the claim that “nobody could have known” that Iraq did not really have WMDs. Contrary to the pervasive self-justifying myth that “everyone” believed that Saddam possessed these weapons — and thus nobody can be blamed for failing to realize the truth — the evidence to the contrary was both public and overwhelming. Consider the March 17, 2003, Der Spiegel Editorial warning that “for months now, Bush and Blair have been busy blowing up, exaggerating and deliberately over-interpreting intelligence information and rumours to justify war on Iraq,” or a September 30, 2002 McClatchy article — headlined: “War talk fogged by lingering questions; Threat Hussein poses is unclear to experts” — which detailed the reasons for serious skepticism about the pro-war case.
Or simply recall the various pre-war statements by the ex-Marine and U.N. weapons inspector for Iraq, Scott Ritter (“The truth of the matter is that Iraq has not been shown to possess weapons of mass destruction, either in terms of having retained prohibited capability from the past, or by seeking to re-acquire such capability today”), or Howard Dean in his Drake speech (“Secretary Powell’s recent presentation at the UN showed the extent to which we have Iraq under an audio and visual microscope. Given that, I was impressed not by the vastness of evidence presented by the Secretary, but rather by its sketchiness“). All of that, too, was brushed aside by government officials and suppressed and even mocked by most of the American media, all of whom were determined to allow nothing to impede the march to war. Rather than take responsibility for their failings, they instead insist — as Burns did today — that they could not have known.
I will admit this period of history is a blind spot for me, I was serving a mission in Taiwan at the time and did not read the news at all.
So I can't really refute what the state of the evidence was at the time these decisions were made. I do know I came back home and was incredibly shocked that we could engage in a war, with absolutely nothing concrete to justify that action. I really thought my country was incapable of doing that.
In my regional business environment Asia my reading discussed how in China nationalism is often drummed up as a way to defuse tensions towards the government, but can lead to the opposite result, as people use nationalism as a cloak for their actual frustrations. More importantly, this excess nationalism leads to the government having to find a way to not appear weak when dealing with other nations when they cross swords. So for example when the US bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade it ignited a powerful mix of undercurrential (yes I made that word up) problems. The government response to save face was overwrought in part because they had to deal with these problems.
All I could think of when I read those chapters was that's almost exactly what happened in the US in 2001-2003 (from what I can tell), we drummed up patriotism and nationalism to a fever pitch thinking there's no such thing as excess, and then promptly found ourselves rushing headlong into a pointless armed conflict with Iraq because to call Hussein an ally of the men who attacked us as well as a WMD armed menace to America and then admit that we'd said that absent real evidence would have caused the government to lose face in exactly the same way.
I'm still pretty angry about it.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I think Mucus is editing what was actually happening in 2003 a bit. Even the Resolution that passed contained within it the idea that the use of force was being authorized not as a blank check with the expectation that we'd invade within days, it was not an invasion resolution, but rather the idea that the Resolution gave Bush the power to compel Saddam to resolve the issue with a threat of arms, or that some form of military action would compel his compliance.
Kerry and others who were wary of what was happening didn't vote for it thinking "I voted for an invasion." They thought they were voting for what the Resolution actually said, that Bush would use the authorization he had in compliance with Security Council resolutions to enforce them and to compel Saddam to adhere to SC resolutions through continued diplomacy.
That's how the White House sold it to Congress, that's what Democrats thought they were signing. Looking back now, knowing all that we know about the Bush Administration, it's pretty clear to see they were lying through their teeth and never had any intention of following the letter of the Resolution itself, but rather saw all that as a minor stumbling block to get a blank check to do what he planned to do from the start.
But that wasn't clear when they voted for it. That's certainly my recollection of how things went, that Bush basically gave up on diplomacy five minutes after it started, and never really followed the directions laid out in the Resolution.
So yeah, I think it's pretty unfair to say everyone who voted for the Resolution was in favor of invasion. Given what happened and how it went down, and the wording many insisted on including in the Resolution, it's pretty clear many of them were NOT supportive of what happened as it was happening.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Kerry specifically backed the attack both before and after it.
quote:By the time of the March invasion, after Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s United Nations presentation on Iraq’s alleged weapons, Kerry backed the attack, according to articles that appeared in the Boston Globe (and which were written by one of his current aides at the State Department).
quote:“It appears that with the deadline for exile come and gone, Saddam Hussein has chosen to make military force the ultimate weapons inspections enforcement mechanism,” Kerry said. “If so, the only exit strategy is victory. This is our common mission and the world’s cause. We’re in this together. We want to complete the mission while safeguarding our troops, avoiding innocent civilian casualties, disarming Saddam Hussein, and engaging the community of nations to rebuild Iraq,” he said.
Kerry criticized what he called “a failure of diplomacy of a massive order” but told the Globe that if he were president, he may not have been able to avoid war.
In fact, during a Democratic presidential debate on May 3, two days after Bush prematurely declared “mission accomplished,” Kerry said: “I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein, and when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him.”
And in the line before your emphasis, he stressed the point that Bush totally failed to do what he promised to avoid a war by abandoning the diplomatic effort.
Kerry voted on the Resolution five months before the invasion began.
What happened later happened later, you can't just roll the whole timeline together and average it out.
I never said he never claimed to have supported the war - though personally I think his support was a political sham because being against the war in 2003 and 2004 was a political death sentence - but I think his comments regarding his intentions when he supported the Resolution, that he did it expecting a diplomatic, UN-sanctioned effort, are genuine.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
I was more responding to this "it's pretty clear many of them were NOT supportive of what happened as it was happening." It's pretty clear from what he said that he was supportive of what happened as it was happening, but maybe it was a sham? Ok sure.
So in the 21st century, he clearly supported the invasion of the another country on a trumped up pretext. But he didn't just support it, he supported it as a sham for political gain. He got people killed so he could get a few more votes. That's a real improvement. (I think I preferred it when Orincoro explained it as him just being an idiot.)
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
There's a lot of fair, valid criticism in there.
I think Kerry hated the idea from the start, but recognized that any good diplomatic exchange required a hefty stick to go with a hearty carrot, despite the fact that most of the negotiations were stick rather than carrot. So he voted for the use of force thinking it would help bring Saddam to the table. I also think that because his natural inclination is anti-war, a stance that's well-documented going back to Vietnam.
I think he changed his tune around February when it was clear that being against the War was political suicide. Public support was too strong, political retribution was too powerful. So he caved for political reasons. Perhaps his support was genuine because he believed that Bush had a better plan for the War and its aftermath, but if that's true, he didn't ask enough questions.
When the War started to go south after the insurgency flared up in earnest, I think he realized there was now a space for anti-war voices, so he dropped the facade and went back to his roots. He still took a ton of flak for it. Hell, probably lost the election based in large part on that. Ever since then he's been a vocal opponent of it and critic of Bush's handling of it.
I'm not saying Kerry is perfect, I'm not defending every thing he's said or every position he's taking. But I think his initial vote for authorizing force wasn't what it's usually characterized as. I think he decided to go with the flow after he saw where things were going because he didn't want to get crushed and he knew opposing the War wouldn't do a thing. So he fails on having the courage of his convictions, but other than bragging rights, I don't know what it would have gotten him.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: So in the 21st century, he clearly supported the invasion of the another country on a trumped up pretext. But he didn't just support it, he supported it as a sham for political gain. He got people killed so he could get a few more votes. That's a real improvement. (I think I preferred it when Orincoro explained it as him just being an idiot.)
In looking back, I think there's a fair case to be made that a lot of senators and congresspeople were motivated by political gain, but were also clearly stupid enough to believe that the pretext, no matter how thin, would shield them from blame for their actions. Something that has turned out to be *mostly* true after all. Kerry later became Sec State, so who's the idiot really?
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I think he changed his tune around February when it was clear that being against the War was political suicide. Public support was too strong, political retribution was too powerful. So he caved for political reasons. Perhaps his support was genuine because he believed that Bush had a better plan for the War and its aftermath, but if that's true, he didn't ask enough questions.
The majority of blame for the Iraq war goes to the totally unchecked spending on intelligence growth that started just after 9/11. Something congress rubber-stamped with very little conception of the long-term consequences, and something Bush used as essentially a form of all-spice for every remaining policy initiative in his 8 years in office.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Apparently russia's state media is going full goebbels on this crap
never go full goebbels
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Also apparently it's a thing where conservative bloggers are lauding Romney for his prescience in saying Russia was our greatest geo-political threat during the presidential debates.
Because, you know, Ukraine is totally where we get all our stuff from.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I think he decided to go with the flow after he saw where things were going because he didn't want to get crushed and he knew opposing the War wouldn't do a thing. So he fails on having the courage of his convictions, but other than bragging rights, I don't know what it would have gotten him.
Two things: first it's like what they say to drivers "you aren't stuck in traffic, you are traffic." In this case, he's wasn't just going with the flow, he was flow. By failing to stick his neck out, he could have influenced others that were in a similar position and also failed to do so, while implicitly helping to marginalise those that did.
Second, I think it's part of his job both as a representative in a representative democracy and especially as a senator (house of sober second thought and all that) to not always go with the flow. Its why he gets paid the big bucks
In any case, I think we've taken the quote as far as it should go. Its clear that this isn't just 19th century behaviour and its clear that trumped-up pretexts get used in the 21st century although we can disagree on whether there are mitigating circumstances that make him a particularly inappropriate (or not) candidate to deliver his message.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Also apparently it's a thing where conservative bloggers are lauding Romney for his prescience in saying Russia was our greatest geo-political threat during the presidential debates.
Because, you know, Ukraine is totally where we get all our stuff from.
He... Didn't say that. And I don't think any conservative blogs are claiming he did. You didn't quote him, which tells me either you know he didn't actually say that or you just didn't care enough about being precise to look up the quote before making claims about it. Guessing the latter.
Also I'm just gonna say: it's trippy to see a big argument about whether or not Kerry was antiwar enough. I just. Wow.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
What?
Considering most people who identity as left leaning don't feel the Democrats are left enough I'm sure its reasonable to criticism Kerry for being flippity floppity on the Iraq War. The *worst* foreign policy decision made by the United States in its entire history.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Also apparently it's a thing where conservative bloggers are lauding Romney for his prescience in saying Russia was our greatest geo-political threat during the presidential debates.
Because, you know, Ukraine is totally where we get all our stuff from.
He... Didn't say that. And I don't think any conservative blogs are claiming he did. You didn't quote him, which tells me either you know he didn't actually say that or you just didn't care enough about being precise to look up the quote before making claims about it. Guessing the latter.
Also I'm just gonna say: it's trippy to see a big argument about whether or not Kerry was antiwar enough. I just. Wow.
I'm pretty emotionally drained right now, so forgive my brevity. Romney didn't say Russia was our greatest geo-political foe? That's what I've been getting thrown at me the last few days by several people
And from a person on Facebook,
"Remember when Romney and Obama debated about foreign policy and Romney talked about importance of keeping eyes on Russia as one of the geopolitical forces America should be concerned about? To which President Obama somewhat scoffed. Good times."
All I said was it's a thing. That's what I've seen being claimed. I wasn't trying to comment on Mr. Romney's prescience or lack thereof in what he actually said, or dissect the substance of what he said, in fact, I'd largely say he was laughed at unfairly whatever he actually said.
I was commenting on conservatives thinking events happening now speak to Romney being right and Obama being an idiot for saying what he did in the debates.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade:
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Also apparently it's a thing where conservative bloggers are lauding Romney for his prescience in saying Russia was our greatest geo-political threat during the presidential debates.
Because, you know, Ukraine is totally where we get all our stuff from.
He... Didn't say that. And I don't think any conservative blogs are claiming he did. You didn't quote him, which tells me either you know he didn't actually say that or you just didn't care enough about being precise to look up the quote before making claims about it. Guessing the latter.
Also I'm just gonna say: it's trippy to see a big argument about whether or not Kerry was antiwar enough. I just. Wow.
I'm pretty emotionally drained right now, so forgive my brevity. Romney didn't say Russia was our greatest geo-political foe? That's what I've been getting thrown at me the last few days by several people
And from a person on Facebook,
"Remember when Romney and Obama debated about foreign policy and Romney talked about importance of keeping eyes on Russia as one of the geopolitical forces America should be concerned about? To which President Obama somewhat scoffed. Good times."
All I said was it's a thing. That's what I've seen being claimed. I wasn't trying to comment on Mr. Romney's prescience or lack thereof in what he actually said, or dissect the substance of what he said, in fact, I'd largely say he was laughed at unfairly whatever he actually said.
I was commenting on conservatives thinking events happening now speak to Romney being right and Obama being an idiot for saying what he did in the debates.
So, there's an important difference between the way you phrase it and the way your quote from FB phrases it. In the quote, there's one important word missing. That changes the claim from being very dubious into being straightforwardly true. The FB quote is closer to what Romney actually said. Do you see the difference?
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
When that sort of commentary and reporting appears frequently on major American television outlets, American celebration of its own “free press” can be taken seriously. Or, put another way, until hosts of major U.S. television programs do what Abby Martin just did on RT in connection with a major American military intervention, American commentators’ self-justifying mockery of Russian media outlets will continue to be as persuasive as the condemnation of Russian imperialism and aggression from the David Frums of the world.
UPDATE: The official RT account on Twitter seems perfectly proud of Martin’s statements, as they re-tweeted my commentary about her monologue condemning Russia’s actions:
UPDATE II: In response to my question about whether any U.S. television hosts issued denunciations of the attack on Iraq similar to what Martin just did on RT, Washington lawyer Bradley Moss replied: “Phil Donahue (MSNBC) and Peter Arnett (NBC).”
Leaving aside that Arnett wasn’t a host, this perfectly proves the point I made, since both Donahue and Arnett were fired because of their opposition to the U.S. war. Arnett was fired instantly by NBC after he made critical comments about the war effort on Iraqi television, while a memo from MSNBC executives made clear they were firing Donahue despite his show being the network’s highest-rated program because he would be “a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war”.
During that same time, MSNBC’s rising star Ashleigh Banfield was demoted and then fired after she delivered a stinging rebuke of misleading pro-war TV coverage by U.S. outlets, while Jessica Yellin, at MSNBC during the time of the war, admitted in 2008 that “the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president’s high approval ratings” and that executives would change stories to make them more pro-war.
All of that stands in rather stark contrast to the clear denunciation of the Russian intervention by Martin which RT broadcast and this morning is promoting. We’ll see if she suffers any recriminations, but if she does, U.S. media behavior during the attack on Iraq was hardly any better. [/quote]
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Romney on Russia: This is to Russia, this is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe.
I'm not sure what the substantive difference is between "number one" and "greatest."
I'll say this though, I think Romney's truncated quote isn't really a fair one. He wasn't just saying that Russia is our biggest direct threat, he was saying that Russia was the one propping up all our direct threats and our biggest problems. I'm still not sure that actually makes or made them our number one geopolitical threat, but I think he had a point worth making that often got ignore during Obama's "reset" with Russia. He went on to further clarify that point in subsequent interviews where he said they weren't a security threat, but a geopolitical threat, which I thought was actually a great use of nuance. Kerry would have been proud.
So I think BlackBlade's original comment on Romney's statement was truer to what he actually said. I think the word "threat" is where Dan Frank might have been getting tripped up, but "threat" wasn't the word Romney was focused on in his explanation, "geopolitical" was.
And what he said was perfectly defensible.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Thanks for the input Lyr. You interpreted me right, and I'll concede that your reading of it is better than mine.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Hopefully that didn't come across as argumentative, I wasn't trying to be.
I was actually defending Romney.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Yup, I followed you! Hence my agreement. Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Good.
It's so rare that we're on the same page that I wanted to confirm and commemorate the occasion. Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
I liked this
quote:Niu Jun, a professor of international affairs at Peking University, said China wanted to maintain its relationship with Russia yet had strong concerns about foreign intervention. “It’s all very inconvenient,” he said. “That’s why they came out with a statement nobody can understand.
Ha! That was awesome. I welcome a China that is increasingly looked to for its opinions regarding world events.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
China could teach a Masters class in obfuscation and double-talk.
I like it.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
They really could. Though not double speak, one of my favorite quotes is from Emperor Hirohito announcing the surrender of Japan,
"the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage"
It's a fantastic example of how you say something by not saying it.
Posted by Jake (Member # 206) on :
Is that kind of circumspection kind of built into the language for Chinese and Japanese? I know it is for Thai.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Culture makes the language, language makes the culture. That's a circular process in some respects.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
The Fremen don't like to say no.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
generally in business dealings with Japanese businesspeople you have to be trained specifically to confront their obfuscation
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jake: Is that kind of circumspection kind of built into the language for Chinese and Japanese? I know it is for Thai.
Hard to say, as Orincoro said maybe it's a chicken egg argument?
One interesting change I've seen happen in my lifetime was that Mandarin does not really have an analog for "no". They have a character you could render as "not" but everything is "not able" "is not" "can not", or "not correct" you never just flat out say "no" though. At least until fairly recently because of how much exposure the Chinese have gotten with English and our concept of "yes" and "no" I've seen people without hesitation say "not" but mean no. As in, "no, no, no, that's not correct", while using the same worth for "not" and "no".
The Mainland Chinese seem to have become more comfortable with direct communication, but largely diplomacy and government speak is still an exercise is obfuscation and double speak.
Posted by Jake (Member # 206) on :
That exact thing--a lack of a word for "no", but a negating word that effectively means "not" is exactly what I was talking about with Thai.
Tangentally related--the phrase which means "excuse me" in Thai literally translates as "punish me". I've always found that interesting.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
well that's a novel theory
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: generally in business dealings with Japanese businesspeople you have to be trained specifically to confront their obfuscation
May not be the exact spelling but in Japanese culture this is because of the honne and tatame or "inner face" vs "outer face" and is actually the most worrying cultural concept for someone like me. Or "What they say" vs "What they mean"; I forget which is which so don't take the order exactly, but essentially you're supposed to have a facade that hides what you really think or feel (this is why the Japanese by Westerners seem so polite) and other Japanese people are supposed to know and understand this so they can read between the lines.
So someone asking you "Would you like to stay for dinner?" Is actually counter intuitively an invitation to leave and this concept is of paramount importance.
It sounds similar to the concept of "Social que's/context" so I imagine its that times eleven.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Yes, but it's also true that Japanese businessmen will often say no in that roundabout way, and then think that's the end of the discussion. They also resist your efforts to find out why they have declined your request even if you understand that they *are* declining.
I just had a wonderful project with one of my Japanese friends this week where we discussed whether to single space or double space a document. He asked and I said let's single space it. He came to me the next day with two copies of the assignment one single spaced, one double spaced. Reading the message loud and clear I asked him, "I see you printed a double spaced copy as well. Would you like me to present the assignments to the instructor and see if she is OK with double spacing?"
He paused and stuttered just a little bit (I could tell he was struggling with being direct) and said, "Yes, would you be willing to do that?" So I did. I could have gotten hung up on him ignoring what I thought was a done deal, or just taken the single spaced copy, but I recognized that I'd failed to pick up on his not being committed to what I thought was a joint decision. But I still expected him to give me a straight yes or no to my question.
Cross cultural work really does require both sides to lean a little, and that does mean Japanese people being more direct, while Americans being more circumspect.
Posted by Jake (Member # 206) on :
When I was growing up, my mom was involved with an organization called Small World that was put together to help give a community, along with the skills necessary to get by in the US, to the wives of men who had come to the University of Kansas from overseas to study or teach(it was the early 70s, so virtually all of the foreign students and professors were male). She taught ESL, took groups on field trips that introduced them to various aspects of day to day life in the US in a non-threatening manner, and was eventually chairwoman of the program for a while. A friend she made there was a Japanese woman who had an incredibly difficult time letting go of the indirect approach, and missed out on a lot of food and drink that she genuinely wanted because she stuck with her cultural programming and didn't feel like she could accept the offer until the third time it was being extended. My mom got her over that hump, but as I recall it took a fair bit of role playing and practice.
[ March 06, 2014, 02:49 PM: Message edited by: Jake ]
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
It's actually been supremely frustrating to a family member who has been working on some manner of medical/epidemiological work in Japan. The stratified levels of heirarchical social dogma, the high cultural power distance, and the implacable 'saving face' is antithetical to actually being able to get good research results, which is one of the reasons they were brought in to reform them.
He's had to deal with people who are unable to say what results accomplished what and to just give clear status reports on anything and he was for a long time unable to stop senior executives from simply placing family members into research management positions they were not qualified for and expecting that to be the end of it. it was like dismantling the lost decade all over again.
it was like how the niceties and absurdly hierarchical social protocols of the south koreans were causing them to crash airplanes constantly
Posted by Jake (Member # 206) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: it was like how the niceties and absurdly hierarchical social protocols of the south koreans were causing them to crash airplanes constantly
I'm not familiar with that one. What are the details?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Delta report on Korean Air that was posted anonymously on the Internet, one of the auditors tells a story of sitting in on a Korean Air flight where the first officer got confused while listening to Air Traffic Control and mistakenly put the plane on a course intended for another plane. "The Flight Engineer picked up something was wrong but said nothing. First Officer was also not happy but said nothing. Despite [good] visual conditions, crew did not look out and see that current heading would not bring them to the airfield." Finally the plane's radar picks up the mistake, and then comes the key sentence: "Captain hit First Officer with the back of his hand for making the error."
Hit him with the back of his hand?
When the three pilots all met that evening at Kimpo for their preflight preparation, the first officer and the engineer would have bowed to the captain. They would all have then shaken hands. "Cheo eom hoeh seom ni da," the copilot might have said, respectfully. "It is first time to meet you." The Korean language has no fewer than six different levels of conversational address, depending on the relationship between the addressee and the addresser: formal deference, informal deference, blunt, familiar, intimate, and plain. The first officer would not have dared to use one of the more intimate or familiar forms when he addressed the captain. This is a culture in which enormous attention is paid to the relative standing of any two people in a conversation.
The Korean linguist Ho-min Sohn writes:
At a dinner table, a lower-ranking person must wait until a higher-ranking person sits down and starts eating, while the reverse does not hold true; one does not smoke in the presence of a social superior; when drinking with a social superior, the subordinate hides his glass and turns away from the superior;… in greeting a social superior (though not an inferior) a Korean must bow; a Korean must rise when an obvious social superior appears on the scene, and he cannot pass in front of an obvious social superior. All social behavior and actions are conducted in the order of seniority or ranking; as the saying goes, chanmul to wi alay ka issta, there is order even to drinking cold water.
So, when the first officer says, "Don't you think it rains more? In this area, here?" we know what he means by that:
Captain. You have committed us to visual approach, with no backup plan, and the weather outside is terrible. You think that we will break out of the clouds in time to see the runway. But what if we don't? It's pitch-black outside and pouring rain and the glide scope is down.
But he can't say that. He hints, and in his mind he's said as much as he can to a superior. The first officer will not mention the weather again.
It is just after that moment that the plane, briefly, breaks out of the clouds, and off in the distance the pilots see lights.
"Is it Guam?" the flight engineer asks. Then, after a pause, he says, "It's Guam, Guam."
The captain chuckles. "Good!"
But it isn't good. It's an illusion. They've come out of the clouds for a moment. But they are still twenty miles from the airport, and there is an enormous amount of bad weather still ahead of them. The flight engineer knows this, because it is his responsibility to track the weather, so now he decides to speak up.
"Captain, the weather radar has helped us a lot," he says.
The weather radar has helped us a lot? A second hint from the flight deck. What the engineer means is just what the first officer meant. This isn't a night where you can rely on just your eyes to land the plane. Look at what the weather radar is telling us: there's trouble ahead.
To Western ears, it seems strange that the flight engineer would bring up this subject just once. Western communication has what linguists call a "transmitter orientation".that is, it is considered the responsibility of the speaker to communicate ideas clearly and unambiguously. Even in the tragic case of the Air Florida crash, where the first officer never does more than hint about the danger posed by the ice, he still hints four times, phrasing his comments four different ways, in an attempt to make his meaning clear. He may have been constrained by the power distance between himself and the captain, but he was still operating within a Western cultural context, which holds that if there is confusion, it is the fault of the speaker.
But Korea, like many Asian countries, is receiver oriented. It is up to the listener to make sense of what is being said. In the engineer's mind, he has said a lot.
Sohn gives the following conversation as an illustration, an exchange between an employee (Mr. Kim) and his boss, a division chief (Kwacang).
KWACANG:
It's cold and I'm kind of hungry.
[MEANING: Why don't you buy a drink or something to eat?]
MR. KIM:
How about having a glass of liquor?
[MEANING: I will buy liquor for you.]
KWACANG:
It's okay. Don't bother.
[MEANING: I will accept your offer if you repeat it.]
MR. KIM:
You must be hungry. How about going out?
[MEANING: I insist upon treating you.]
KWACANG:
Shall I do so?
[MEANING: I accept.]
There is something beautiful in the subtlety of that exchange, in the attention that each party must pay to the motivations and desires of the other. It is civilized, in the truest sense of that word: it does not permit insensitivity or indifference.
But high-power distance communication works only when the listener is capable of paying close attention, and it works only if the two parties in a conversation have the luxury of time, in order to unwind each other's meanings. It doesn't work in an airplane cockpit on a stormy night with an exhausted pilot trying to land at an airport with a broken glide scope.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
I almost feel like Japan would've been improved greatly had it actually became the 49th State.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
I can think of a bazillion reasons why that's a terrible idea.
Respectfully.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
It might have been, in some ways. But the losses would have far, far outweighed the gains for both of us, IMO.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
No there was a brief period where it looked like they woould've voted themselves in.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
They might have, but Congress never would have voted them in.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Not a chance in hell, really.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Also if by some miracle they had voted them in, I would expect them to be out again by now. Japan is a very independently minded country.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
The Union is eternal.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
I feel like there's such a fundamental miscommunication that its actually impossible to resolve.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: The Union is eternal.
Down with separatists!
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jake: That exact thing--a lack of a word for "no", but a negating word that effectively means "not" is exactly what I was talking about with Thai.
That's so funny. Slavic languages (and Slavic people in generally), are extremely comfortable with saying no. Sometimes they say no even when they mean yes.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar: I feel like there's such a fundamental miscommunication that its actually impossible to resolve.
You appeared to be suggesting that there was, at some point, a serious possibility that Japan would be admitted to the United States as a full state in its own right. That seems...unlikely is understating things, but if that's not what you meant, I don't know what you did mean.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I don't think he meant it was an actual possibility. I think he meant it might have been better for them, and that for a brief period, the Japanese people themselves might have considered it, which leaves the American side of the equation out of it. I don't know enough about Japanese history to know if they really would have considered it, but that's a more limited statement.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Oh man those expressions...
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
a guy like putin being the ruler of russia is kind of a perfect demonstration of how much it has descended into a goonish kleptocracy
it's just so amazing. russia was going to have crimea no matter what, but putin can't do it in a way which doesn't do a number on their already tenuous international standing.
with luck though maybe the G7 will stop pretending it's the G8
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Merkel said today that Russia no longer has a place in the G8.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
ha!
see, right there. AND russia's going to spend a few years finding out what it's like to be a corrupt petro state that has spooked its primary markets (europe, etc) out of trusting them to hold the energy reins.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
Surprised this thread hasn't had much more posting given whats going on in Eastern Ukraine.
Anyways, updating the scoreboard since I made some claims and should own up to them:
-Wrong w.r.t G8, although one could argue its important functions are superseded by the G20.
-Wrong on Russian expanding into Ukraine, this one actually baffles me as taking Crimea was risky enough and generally an all around "win", while the insertion into Ukraine appears to have been "lessons learned" and better executed this makes me feel like its crossing the line for what Russia can get away with. Its not what I'ld do when playing Hearts of Iron. :colbert:
-Currently though there is still no significant effort to economically relieve Ukraine on the order of the 80 billion$ it needs, it maybe has about 10 billion possibly going its way. The IMF are still being austeritarian dicks. Same as below I'll consider this one a draw as who knows what'll happen.
-Sanctions are currently still pisspoor and don't amount to anything, and wouldn't have amounted to anything with just Crimea, at this point anything is possible. But the economics are not making the situation favorable for hard action by EU/NATO. I consider this one a draw.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
russia taking crimea in the way that they did was not an all around 'win' - as i mentioned before
quote:IMF are still being austeritarian dicks
how do you define austeritarian, and do you think the imf's strategy here is driven by an attempt to put ukraine through austerity politics
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
Did you mean to put a question mark?
The IMF, from what I've read, isn't interested in handing out funds to countries that they believe aren't "serious" in cutting their debts, so they insist on deep cuts to essential spending (such as pensions for old people), spending that has an important role in maintaining employment and economic growth; essentially Shock Therapy 2.0. For Ukraine this is political suicide, if they force it, they'll just get toppled again. Stability is what Ukraine needs, not further austerity measures.
There are some politicians and people who seem important within the IMF, EU and US administrations that seem willing to simply provide Ukraine the funds it needs without preconditions but I haven't seen movement in that regards.
As for The Hero City of Sevastopol, where I remind you, except for maybe the Rzhev meatgrinder probably some one of the highest concentrations of dead Russians defending the glorious motherland from the Hiterlites who were seeking to exterminate the sacred Russian people (this is for illustrative purposes of Russian thinking) that was illegally given to Ukraine with all of its Russian peoples by a drunk idiot; where now the Baltic Fleet, famous for its history of excellent service to the motherland, for their bravery in battle is currently berthed, and in which there isn't any other naval bases in the black sea in which they could dock if denied Sevastopol...
It was clearly in the Russian interest, to ensure that in the face of a clearly hostile government in Kiev to insure that there was no strategic danger to the Black Sea fleet.
So now the current situation is that the Black Sea Fleet will never be in danger, was taken without firing a shot and no longer need to give blackmail money to the corrupt and illegitimate government in Kiev.
From this prism/perspective how was taking Crimea and securing THE HERO CITY OF SEVASTOPOL not a clear "win"? The sanctions at the time were negligible and the rubble stabilized, there was to be no serious consequences.
Now would it have been how I would have done it? I think if Putin was more concerned with Russian interest more then Putin's interest he would have occupied it, but not annexed it, and used it as a bargaining chip with Kiev to secure an indefinite lease and perhaps greater autonomy for Crimea and an agreement to not join NATO.
As it is now whelp, but that's more a result of seemingly wanting more.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Honestly, what a mess. Protesters overthrowing one government, other protesters overthrowing another government, both sides accusing each other of sending in agents to encourage uprisings, both sides denying it. One side's protesters are Nazis, the other side's protesters are terrorists ... I wish we could stay out of it.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:From this prism/perspective how was taking Crimea and securing THE HERO CITY OF SEVASTOPOL not a clear "win"?
like i said before:
quote:russia was going to have crimea no matter what, but putin can't do it in a way which doesn't do a number on their already tenuous international standing.
congratulations, russia gets their HERO CITY OF WHATEVER (and spook the petro sales base that tenuously floats that ridiculous corrupt mess of a has-been country) (which is not a win)
Posted by Tuukka (Member # 12124) on :
But will Europe really cut down the amount of oil and gas they buy from Russia?
Here in Finland, refining Russian oil is currently the biggest standalone export industry we have (Since Nokia went down). I doubt we are going to sacrifice our own economical interests in order to honor international justice.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
In the short term: nah not really, and I would be flabbergasted if europe didn't purposefully move to weaken sanctions against russia.
In the long term: we already know that the international relations scenario has changed enough that Russia would NOT attempt what they did as recently as 2009, where Gazprom turned off Ukraine's subsidized cash flow to put some fire under the pants of the government of the time. There was a resulting shortage. But it hurt Gazprom too much for Russia to easily debate or even remotely consider a similar shutoff.
Between the two incidents, Russia has spooked its main export markets and hurt its image as a reliable, long term provider. You don't want to do that. The damage will not come in sanctions; it will come in that the Europeans will take this as incentive to treat Russia as a weaker bet for stable energy supply, and move towards a heavier diversification of oil and gas supply that isn't from russia, as well as enhancing alternate energy systems that wean Europe off the tap.
Wanna see how Russia makes hard times for itself for a decade? You're seeing it right now. Russia is so greatly dependent on its energy revenues that it is a classic petrostate. History shows that these are susceptible to corruption, autocracy and violent conflict, as well as bust contractions that hurt. Greatly.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Also already we've seen hundreds of billions of dollars of capital flood out of Russia. Investors don't like uncertainty, and Russia is dishing out a lot of it.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Europe is already talking Ukrainian investment. They'll invest billions in Ukraine's gas market to get fracking up and running. It'll prop up Ukraine with a much needed influx of cash and it'll create a long term investment in freeing themselves from Russian gas exports. Ukraine has a huge amount of untapped natural gas. They just lack the funds and technical know-how to unlock it. The West will help with that.
It was something the West never needed or wanted to do before, but with Putin's latest moves, it's almost a done deal.
Putin made these moves for short term political reasons. Long term they are huge blunders.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Ukrainian helicopters shot down during a raid in Eastern Ukraine against separatists.
The IMF is also saying they will have no choice but to restructure their loan to the Ukraine if they lose control of the East as that is where so much of their manufacturing is.
Man, this just gets worse and worse for Ukraine.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I think the Crimea only breaks away if Ukraine splits in two for real. If the West breaks away to form its own nation and seeks closer ties to the EU and the East goes to Russia, the East and Russia will get the Crimea.
But there's no way Russia will annex it outright.
Six months later ...
quote:Russian armored columns said to capture key Ukrainian towns
Russian soldiers, tanks and heavy artillery began rolling into southeastern Ukraine in earnest Thursday, the Ukrainian government said, as well-armed detachments captured key towns, burned buildings and sent the underequipped Ukrainian forces into full retreat — a show of military force that the United States now considers an invasion in all but name.
U.S. officials began saying privately for the first time Thursday that they consider the escalation of recent days tantamount to a Russian invasion, but President Obama stopped short of using the term at a news conference late in the afternoon. He said the United States would continue to rely on sanctions in an effort to deter Russia.
...
Another U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe the behind-the-scenes diplomacy, said the purpose of Russia’s “armed intervention” may be to try to open a land route to Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine earlier this year.
I kinda want to be mad at Russia for waging a war without having the guts to declare war or admitting to anything, but it seems like they've been studying the American school of diplomacy/warfare quite well.
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
*nods* Having actually taken part in similar military actions in the Philippines, I can say that the U.S. doesn't really have the moral high ground on this. Then again, we were acting in support of the Filipino government against rebels and terrorists with less than noble intentions (the bombing of a catholic school that dared to educate girls is something I remember rather vividly), but how many Americans even know that we have troops deployed in the Philippines? How many care? I mean, we've been involved in the fighting there since 2002, and while I read news reports of the conflicts there, they never seem to made the front page.
If the Ukraine was located in the Middle East or Africa or southeast Asia, I wonder if many people would even know this conflict was going on.
[ August 29, 2014, 02:41 PM: Message edited by: Dogbreath ]
Posted by Jake (Member # 206) on :
In what respects are the US actions in the Philippines similar?
Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath: but how many Americans even know that we have troops deployed in the Philippines?
Not me.
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jake: In what respects are the US actions in the Philippines similar?
We provide them with the equipment, training, and logistical and intelligence support to help them fight an ongoing insurgency in the Philippines, as well as engaging in some limited combat operations. This article goes over the basics of our involvement there... I've been deployed to the Philippines on two occasions, and didn't really know the extent of what we were doing until I was there.
They're not exact situations - i.e, we're supporting the legitimate government, not the insurgency in this case - but they are similar in that we're effectively fighting a proxy war while retaining a level of anonymity and neutrality that we wouldn't be if, say, we straight up invaded the Philippines. We do this *all* the time, and are currently doing it in several countries, and most people don't notice and/or care.
Posted by Jake (Member # 206) on :
Interesting; thanks.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
WHO HAS ONE AND A HALF THUMBS after the terrible lanyard accident AND WAS RIGHT ABOUT RUSSIA
I am pleased that I am not so lost to empathy as to have lost the ability to feel schadenfreude. But, damn, I like that headline.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
My favorite analysis thus far is that the only worse popular investment than the ruble this year was bitcoin. Russia don't need that, dog. Russia is worse off than Greece now. And it's going to be awful for the Russians.
Posted by NobleHunter (Member # 12043) on :
Just awful and I feel terrible for the homophobic imperialistic bastards.
Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
Historically bankrupting countries are the most dangerous, though.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Either Putin will lash out irrationally in an attempt to secure his hold on domestic power.
Or the people, faced with bread lines and inflation, will rise up and look for an alternative.
Running all 160 some nations on earth through those circumstances and seeing which ones choose Option B, I think you'll find Russia is nearly the last nation on Earth that would choose it.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
it's not like they haven't dealt with it before though. Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
Yeah in a way I appreciate the schadenfreude of big bad Russia getting its just deserts.
But an unstable Russia really isn't good for anybody. I certainly don't ever want to see Putin when he feels he has nothing left to lose.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Russia was already unstable independent of whether the economy was robust or not. Putin already acted with indignant abandon. This is not very likely to make his behavior more worrying, because for the reasons I almost prophetically detailed, the economic issues will make it more and more that he has to sit down and shut up if the international community wills it.
It had become a rapidly autocratizing, dysfunctional kleptocracy, drowning in corruption, increasingly reliant on nationalist propaganda and distracting pogroms (note the organized utilization of homophobia, as an example) to keep things smoothed over.
This last year, Russian state control over the media and the way it depicted events such as the downed plane incident went fully into the realm of insanity.
The Russians are likely to suffer for a long time and it's really not pretty.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Either Putin will lash out irrationally in an attempt to secure his hold on domestic power.
Or the people, faced with bread lines and inflation, will rise up and look for an alternative.
Running all 160 some nations on earth through those circumstances and seeing which ones choose Option B, I think you'll find Russia is nearly the last nation on Earth that would choose it.
I sort of disagree actually. The last time Russia expanded militarily, it was more or less goaded into it (annexing Poland), and then provoked into a war that quickly became a grab for targets of opportunity towards the end. Granted, the circumstances were *sort of* similar in 1936 to what they are today, but a big piece of that is missing- nobody is inviting them into Europe this time. They are even more diplomatically isolated than they were then.
And if you look at every other situation in which Russia has been faced with a similar crisis, it has collapsed in on itself relatively quickly. Nothing really changes, but the leaders do get put out to pasture, and new, differently corrupt leaders get put in their place.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Russia's rural economies have apparently been straight up sapped by unbelievable road-to-sochi style corruption and the level of suffering is starting to rise precipitously. Common good projects become giant sieves to vacuum up absurd amounts of cash into a few pockets.
Posted by Tuukka (Member # 12124) on :
Interesting article written today, a day after the sizable collapse of the Russian stock market. It has a good overview of the Russian economy, and the massive problems they have.
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