Russian vassalization of Ukraine

[Dobby]

According to wiki, Russia has the third largest navy, again behind the US and China.

[John Galt]

[John Galt]

[John Galt]

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ca3e8250 ... ab7de.html


ouch, obama

[broken robot]

several things here: first our definition that a significant military power must entail ability to police the world in the style of the US is too narrow. fact of the matter is russia's military is nothing to sneeze at (though neither is it invincible). the history of western intervention after wwii against poor third world countries has led to an overblown belief in our own military superiority, and leads to possible underestimation of what's at stake in these seemingly minor confrontations. russia must be engaged as a serious competitor in global affairs. again, just because it can't or doesn't send troops to the central african republic or iraq doesn't mean that it doesn't have serious military capabilities that make it a formidable opponent. same can be said for china.

again, as i said before we seem to be stuck in the idea that us global hegemony permeates every sphere, which it kinda did immediately after the end of the cold war. but the world changes, and we still have a competitive system of nation-states. right now the nation-state system appears to be frozen in historical stasis, balanced by american military prowess, russian control of energy, chinese control of debt, etc. but rest assured this is a temporary state of affairs.

finally, the idea that because the world is economically connected through globalization and therefore there won't be great power conflicts again is significantly overblown. all countries and territories have always been connected. sure that level of interconnection has increased in degree, especially with the rise of new media and communicative technologies, but it doesn't erase old political divisions. this is again where the hyper-globalizers have been found wanting: the nation-state system persists, so how do we or will we explain its eventual reconfiguration? again to use a historical example, right up until wwi countries in europe were significantly connected. heck during the war the brits were probably fighting their cousins in germany thanks to all the dynastic marriages. this certainly didn't erase the value and significance of political divisions.

the only thing that's perhaps qualitatively different about the current stage is the threat of nuclear war. there is indeed a good chance teh human race will meet its end in the hell fires of nuclear war. but that's a possibility like any other. in my mind there's more evidence that great power conflicts can and will be fought in localized arenas, rather than necessarily spreading all across the world, in some kind of mega-apocalypse version of world war iii. look at india and pakistan for example: two nuclear-armed powers with a long history of antagonism fought border skirmishes in the late 1990s. yet they didn't nuke each other. nukes are a last resort, and i think we have let the shadow of the cuban missile crisis hanging over us. war doesn't need to entail a logic of total capitulation, a rather extreme model we seem to draw from Napoleon's victories across europe or the end of wwii. the more likely alternative is that conflicts and wars between powers will continue to be fought, but that they will spark a transformation in the balance of internal forces of the defeated society, just like japan defeated russia in naval conflict in 1905, or the russians overthrew the tsar and got out of wwi without the kaiser marching on moscow.

now in this thread i've looked at the possibility of intervening in the ukraine conflict. some might think it bizarre that a radical known for writing marxist apologetics about massive inequality in the us would have any truck with this idea. but i've come to question my own dogma and belief that conflict anywhere at anytime is merely a reflection of us hegemony imposing its will on the world. i've underestimated russia, and china for that matter. and while i think the us has done significant harm in places such as latin america, i also see that there are different understandings of citizenship in russia and china that are part of a worrisome authoritarian trend connected to proxy ideological battles throughout the world.

i would consider a radical blend of foreign policy that combines appeals to international solidarity with recognition of the fact that the global balance of power relations is constantly shifting and that there is nothing exceptional about the us and its alleged metaphysical connection to the principles of "freedom" and "justice." but rather than smacking down some poor third world country, i think if we're going to champion any kind of foreign intervention it should be directly against our rivals, and see where the chips may fall. war is a contingent process, and victors are not predetermined.

as for those who've already cast their votes on whether the current great power status quo will maintain, remember that the world is predictable, until it isn't.

edit: this is part of a more general thought experiment than a direct call for military intervention in this particular instance based on the existing diplomatic and ground realities.

[John Galt]

i do think that putin needs to be dealt with. that oped from the FT i posted made that quite clear they also think so, but also doubted obama's ability to do so

what obama should do, at least, is deploy the missile shield in poland. provide aid to ukraine. the EU needs to make promises to Ukraine and the US needs back the EU's play on this one. obama entered office promising to improve relations with russia and he has done nothing but seen them go completely in the gutter. im not saying it's his fault entirely, it's putin's play, but obama underestimates the man

putin is already, apparently, hinting on taking half of ukraine by force, beyond crimea, and said so as much to obama with their talk on the phone. the FT article says obama is terrible at "red lines" because he doesn't back up what he says. if there's talk of that, again, he better effing do it or the US's word is shit. the president is the organ of the government in foreign affairs and needs to man up. this shit's embarrassing. the FT urges him to fly to Kiev and give a speech warning russia of suicidal imperialism. it would be a good start. but he needs to follow through

[broken robot]

[John Galt]

[Thatcher]

I find it funny that some of you are pulling for a war with Russia over Crimea or even all of Ukraine. It doesn't concern the US, and it shouldn't concern the EU either. Who really gives a shit if Russia takes Crimea. In the end does it really matter? A lot of you make me cringe with your insistence that we should send troops over an area that has little interest to the US, it's not like Russia has attacked us. Yeah, let's send our troops into Ukraine to fight the Russians because a World War would be super fun for you sitting there on your computers watching the news and the twitter feeds in between playing World of Warcraft. But this is real life, where war equals people losing lives, limbs, sons and daughters. I hope some of you pushing for this have the balls to join the military, not just the military, but join an infantry unit so you can really enjoy the next world war from a first hand point of view!

[The Comrade]

yeah why should we care when russia starts annexing territory from other countries. we should only care when they bomb hawaii, not when they take poland.