Senate Russia: its impact on the world, its invasion of Ukraine, and its future

I wasn’t really pointing it out for reasons of persuasion. Just making the point that there’s not an equivalency of brutality between the two nations, from my perspective.

This is not a message they wish to send. It’s a precautionary action being taken…

 

What does a country on its way towards communism look like in your view?

 

A capitalist country. I’m asking why the Western capital interests are so entrenched that they couldn’t be removed at a future point, but the Chinese ones aren’t?

 

Just to break from the communism discussion for a moment, does anyone still think that the “Russia invades Ukraine” thing is just propaganda that does not reflect their actual intentions?

 

I think Russia would love to invade Ukraine and if we left Ukraine to it’s own and didn’t arm them that would be exactly what would happen.

I am still not convinced that Russia will invade this time, however I do think that American intelligence thinks Russia will invade.

Hopefully. Russia decides even a short war with Ukraine would not be worth it. The war with Ukraine as a functioning state would be short. It would be the guerrilla warfare that would hurt Russia more.

 

Because the PRC is explicitly on its way to socialism. Capital doesn't have power there. The PRC is actively taking steps towards a communist society. Whereas in the US and the rest of the West, capital has so much power that the actual endpoint of our journey is going to be fascism, not communism.

 

I’m very skeptical of the CCP being able to maintain its influence from capital, especially when it’s leaders continue to enjoy wealth and privilege over the average citizen and the upper class in China continues to grow in size and influence. More importantly, I’m also skeptical of how they will convince the Chinese middle class, when the time comes, to give up their own wealth. I feel it’ll be very difficult for them to create anything further left than a robust social democracy when the time comes. Regarding fascism, I think China has just as much potential for succumbing to it as the West. There are significant problems of racism, nationalism and social conservatism, and I think it’s certainly possible capital and the CCP form an alliance for each other’s survival.

On the other hand I don’t think all of the West is any more destined for fascism. If the centre ever fell I think it’s up in the air which way the West will swing.

It’s definitely uncertain whether they intend to go-through on their potential bluff, but the threat doesn’t even seem to be challenged by Russia themselves. The troop build-up was intended, and was successful in, bringing the West to the negotiating table.

 

China being on a "path towards communism" seems quite a questionable claim to me, it seems like its been very much on a path away from communism for the last 40+ years and now looks like its much closer to authoritarian corporatism/facism.

 

This is not a message they wish to send. It’s an svtion

There’s an inherent bias among many intelligent and educated persons against being potentially perceived of as “alarmists” or “Chicken Littles.” Many are much more afraid of presenting a false positive prediction (in this case, invasion) than a false negative (no invasion) no matter which way the evidence seems to be pointing. That’s what’s happened here, IMO.

 

Russia absolutely has the firepower and manpower stationed around Ukraine in their territory and in Belarus to launch an invasion at any moment. They've been moving them into position for months. You can hope they're putting on a show like a North Korea missile launch but you have to prepare for the worst as they have done it before to grab Crimea and eastern Ukraine as well as deployments into other ex-Soviet territories like Georgia.

 

I mean really though I think the best argument against Russian invasion of all of Ukraine would be that it seems very unlikely to be a long term success, indeed I'd say if you actually wanted to get Putin out probably the best way to do that is to have Russian drawn into a quagmire.

I'd agree its very likely the Russians could win a military conflict and probably do so quite fast but could they ever hope to control a mostly hostile population? Putin's interventions previously have always been in area were he knows he has strong support of the locals. Having to keep Russian troops in Ukraine for years on end to prop up a puppet government seems like a recipe for disaster.

 

Meanwhile, Russian threats could push Sweden and Finland to join NATO

 

Russia also has been driving up the cost of gas as part of OPEC+. Low supply during high demand drives prices up. Speculation and fear of a war which Russia is posing also drives prices up.

https://oilprice.com/oil-price-charts/



Doha News (Qatar) - Qatar in talks with the US on supplying Europe with gas as Russia, Ukraine tensions mount
More than 40% of Europe’s liquified natural gas (LNG) supply comes from Russia, and almost a third of the latter’s gas passes through Ukraine.

Russian wants countries (like Germany) hooked on their gas to be dependent upon them and slow to act against them if at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

Wall Street Journal - Germany’s Reliance on Russian Gas Limits Europe’s Options in Ukraine Crisis
Berlin is vulnerable if the West sanctions Russia over Ukraine and Moscow responds by cutting off exports

 

That always seemed like a good idea to me. Now is definitely as good a time as any.

 

If Russia does invade chances are they take much of the East and leave the rest under much smaller puppet state. I don’t think holding Kyiv for years is what Putin wants.

 

Pretty convinced he's going to go in at this point. From his perspective why wouldn't he? Kind of seems like he's calculated it's an acceptable risk, we're not going to do anything more than throw some token small-arms Ukraine's way and sanction some Russian oligarchs 10% more than we already are.

Doubt he goes all the way to Kiev, that'd probably be the breaking point for the west. But whatever Russian language/cultural regions are still technically Ukrainian are probably as good as Russian by now, we're not going to risk a bloody skirmish over that when it could escalate to more.

Honestly, Sweden/Finland are probably the height of the theshold for us to actually put a foot down and stop him, Ukraine's in that traditional Russian sphere of influence to the point I doubt Biden or NATO have the balls to enforce a redline. And Putin's probably unlikely to be dumb enough to go further than Ukraine itself, so long as there's that geographical buffer that's probably what they're going for.

Gonna be a fun century, between this stuff and Taiwan. Jesus.

 

Honestly seeing as Sweden and Finland aren’t in NATO I doubt the west does anything major for them either. I know that is partially why Finland and Sweden don’t join NATO. Cause they think they’ll be defended anyway. No I think NATO isn’t going to give any free bees. It’s either your in NATO and get defended or you aren’t.

If Russia does invade much of Eastern Ukraine I could see it being enough to push Sweden and Finland out of neutrality.

 

Are you suggesting that Sweden and Finland would supply military aid to Ukraine? Just curious.

 

No I am suggesting that NATO won’t go to war for a country that isn’t in NATO. I am sure Sweden and Finland have treaties with other countries in case of an attack. At least I hope they do, but NATO won’t put ground troops in those countries in they are invaded. Just like Ukraine. If Ukraine was in NATO there would be no way Putin would invade.

 

They're not NATO, but there tends to be a line with these things. Finland & Sweden have modern cutting-edge militaries, but they obviously can't stand against Russia solo and we do consider them a part of "the west" at least philosophically. We wouldn't let him take those, NATO or no.

Ukraine, while of course their own entity and all that, I doubt we're going to care about enough to do the right thing, even with all the posturing. Probably some of the former-Soviet states the further you go west we might make a stand as far as some domino effect, but honestly these politicians are just going to see Ukraine as "old Russia" and let him have it, let Kiev do whatever they can do with some insurgence/resistance and that's as far as it goes.

This isn't Libya or ISIS guys in pickups where you can easily create an air-superiority zone if you're inclined. Putin's a bully, but he's a big one, you're not going to bloody his nose here without losing pilots, special forces guys on the ground if we went that far. I don't think the public (US or European alike) has any appetite for that, and you've gotta figure Biden for one isn't going to want to sully his "first president in 20 years not overseeing a war!" claim.

Basically, if Putin wants eastern Ukraine as a whole it's probably his for the taking. Germany wants their pipeline, NATO in general isn't going to want a full-on shooting war bigger (in a modern military sense with high-end rockets & jets on each side, so not so much counting Iraq/Afghanistan here) than anything we've seen since the 90s.

This is probably the unfortunate reality here:




A few more Russian gazillionaires don't get to do business anywhere west of Austria anymore (Switzerland aside of course 'cause the Swiss gonna Swiss), Putin's frowned on marginally more than he already is abroad. Germany humms and hahs over the pipeline a little more before going ahead anyway 'cause national interests.

It does suck. Not sure we have many cards to play though, or at least the ones we do we won't have the backbone to.

 

Also I think if Putin built up troops on the Finnish border as long as he has for Ukraine it would give them enough time to actually join NATO anyway.

 

Makes me want to go read some more Winter War stuff. Finns are pretty intensely hardcore mofos, but yeah, they'd get overrun eventually now as with back then.

 

Joining NATO is probably not a necessity for defence for those states.

Finland’s non-alignment has been respected by Russia and its predecessors since the end of the Second World War. If anything doing such a thing may actually put Finland in more danger than it previously was in for no actual benefit. They are also part of the EU so it’s not like they wouldn’t have countries coming to their aid in any case.

Sweden’s main concern appears to be Gotland. Otherwise they aren’t directly threatened by the Russians. The EU also has mutual defence obligations for Sweden. The benefit seems to be wishy-washy.

NATO would like these states to join because it gives them a better strategic position to defend the Baltic states.

 

Right.