Yes! Absolutely, Russia is playing 19th century balance of power politics. That’s it, that’s all they’re doing. But why should we send American money and arms to Ukraine to keep them from doing that there? How does that serve American interests?
I think the goal would be to have a relatively peaceful world of autonomous free states not directed by external dictators. Easier said than done, but Russia doesn’t seem to want to live in such a world. If Russia is so confident in its virtue maybe it should allow free elections and dissent. Instead it just wants to rule others, to no discernable benefit, and to blame others for it’s problems. I think Russia truly believes in Russian superiority, despite all evidence to the contrary. Sad thing is that it could be a great nation but is locked in self defeating aggression and defensiveness.
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I think we’re talking about very different things. You’re talking about what you think Russia should do. I’m talking about what Russia is going to do. I agree with you that it’d be great if Russia acted like you think they should act. But they’re not going to do that.
I think the first question is open to debate a bit, but the critical third question is whether it strengthens or weakens Russia’s strategic position to invade a Ukraine that’s getting strong material and diplomatic support from the West. I’d say it materially weakens them, certainly relative to the pre-2014 situation.
Making it costly for Russia to do the immoral thing is a win-win. Either they do the bad thing and get a bunch of tanks blown up with Western missiles, or else they realize that it’s going to be costly and they back off from invading Ukraine. What are we worried about here?
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Except I don’t think they’ll actually invade. They’ll escalate the proxy war, maybe stage artillery strikes over the border, maybe do a raid. Maybe seize a particularly strongly supportive enclave of eastern Ukraine. Which I guess is to say, for the third question to be relevant you have to ask, does Russia need to invade Ukraine to wreck it as a functioning state? I don’t think so. Certainly not the whole country and I don’t think even the pro-Russian east.
Long time off and on lurker. Don’t post ever. Anyways, I took a Russian history course in college once years ago, and pretty much the only thing I remember is I read that when judging Russian motivation in respect to foreign policy, most Westerns dont properly understand and account for the pathological distrust that Russia has had with the Western World since the time of Napoleon, and how that has fueled their nativism and foreign policy perspectives.
Starting with the invasion of Russia by Napoleon in 1812, Russia has viewed the last 200 years of history as one long episode of the West continually encroaching on and threatening Russian sovereignty. And from their perspective this is the prime motivating factor justifying most of their foreign policy decisions.
I am not arguing this is a valid or accurate perspective. I am just pointing out it is a very prevalent one. Maybe to Putin this is just a cynical power grab, maybe he is sincere, I really don’t know. I am just pointing out that a sizable portion of the Russian populace probably sincerely believes this episode is a defensive exercise to protect Russian sovereignty.
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bush sr could have promised anything like that, because again he doesn’t control anything subsequent presidents would do. in fact, poland expansion occurred fully seven years into Clinton’s term.
it’s not a neocon/neolib expansionism at all. it’s simply a mutual defense pact.
you’be been wrong about more than that!
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this is a good post, but IMHO there are layers to the pathology yet to be mentioned. russian societal elite enjoys a culture that envies, wishes to emigrate or live abroad, and despises the west and emigrants and expats all at the same time. but even that only describes the attitudes of the elites of a particular era, rather than the larger variance of public opinion.
after times of napoleon, you’d think russians would reject everything french, but they didn’t. they embraced lots of french traditions as if they were spoils of war. the current regime both uses the west as a propaganda flashpoint, AND prepares to flee to western relative safety and human rights should the regime fall. literally hundreds of billions are stashed away in UK and US by russian oligarchs. it will take centuries to uncover them all.
I ask myself what will really happen if Russia invades? Will we defend? I doubt it. A strongly worded response maybe. More toothless economic sanctions? Probably. Unfortunately too many in Germany are more worried about their business ties to Russia or their gas bills than wars, human rights or national sovereignity. I even doubt that you could defend Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania. And I doubt even more that there a lot of people who would send nukes for these little countries. So even in case Russia invades the Ukraine and Nato or few of the Eastern European countries move in to defend Russia would say if you cross the border into Russia we send the Nukes. So all that could be done would be throwing the Russians out and then having to keep troops their for eternity. And Putin knows that the people in Western Europe are not keen to spend lots of money forever to defend a country they dont really care about which also needs lots of money to get their economy going again. Thats unfortunate for the Ukraine and it sucks. But basically every day you see reports throughout the world of brutality and cruelty where I think “Somebody has to step in there” but you wont get a majority for that. The law of the jungle prevails.
It’s mostly a rhetorical concession, as I’m saying it’s irrelevant if Ukraine wants to join the West or not, because Russia won’t let it happen and has the power to keep it from happening. I could be wrong, that Ukraine wouldn’t benefit from being in the West if Russia didn’t care what happened to it, but it’s not really relevant to the point I’m making.
OK, then is Russia’s strategic position strengthened by wrecking Ukraine against determined Western opposition, vs Ukraine being left out to dry by the West and easily brought to heel? To me, it seems like the textbook threat is stronger than the execution case. Influencing its erstwhile sphere of influence via menace is great for Russia. Having to actually put troops on Ukrainian soil indefinitely and get nothing out of it except a bitter enemy is terrible for them.
Typical Russia. When things go to shit domestically, he starts some shit in foreign affairs to solidify support behind him.
But he knows as well as us that sending soldiers to Ukraine is a loss for him. The goal is to just rattle swords whenever things are going shitty to remind people that he’s a tough guy not to actually send soldiers to die in a neverending war. That’s what we do.
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Determined Western opposition, like actually sending troops or something? I agree that the Russians putting boots on the ground in Ukraine indefinitely would be terrible for them, so they probably won’t do it. What they will do is escalate a proxy war and send arms and train whatever insurgents arise to fight. So it wouldn’t be a disaster for Russia, it’d be a disaster for the Western powers sending troops into Ukraine.
But that would be incredibly dangerous, as who knows, maybe the Russians actually would fight with their actual army. And then you’ve got Russians and Americans directly killing each other with thousands of nukes backing them up. What could go wrong?
So in relationship terms, Ukraine was talking to another guy so her ex is justified in getting abusive? And the new guy and his friends are supposed to just let him shove her around? Obviously the scenario is a little easier when it’s just punching a dude vs starting a nuclear war but it seems like just glossing over the abusive behavior is kind of missing the point.
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The great Thomas Friedman made a similar point:
Why is Vladimir Putin threatening to take another bite out of Ukraine, after devouring Crimea in 2014? That is not an easy question to answer because Putin is a one-man psychodrama, with a giant inferiority complex toward America that leaves him always stalking the world with a chip on his shoulder so big it’s amazing he can fit through any door.
Except he starts the metaphor with Putin being a giant eating Crimea, then moves swiftly on to Putin measuring dicks with the US. And then is he still a giant with a similarly giant chip and giant door? Unclear.
Let’s see: Putin is a modern-day Peter the Great out to restore the glory of Mother Russia. He’s a retired K.G.B. agent who simply refuses to come in from the cold and still sees the C.I.A. under every rock and behind every opponent. He’s America’s ex-boyfriend-from-hell, who refuses to let us ignore him and date other countries, like China — because he always measures his status in the world in relation to us. And he’s a politician trying to make sure he wins (or rigs) Russia’s 2024 election — and becomes president for life — because when you’ve siphoned off as many rubles as Putin has, you can never be sure that your successor won’t lock you up and take them all. For him, it’s rule or die.
Ahhhhh yeah here’s the stuff. America is trying to fuck China but Putin won’t let us and is making a scene in Ukraine to try to cockblock us? Is he still measuring dicks with us? Is he still a giant? But you get the idea.
If I were a cynic, I’d just tell him to go ahead and take Kyiv because it would become his Kabul, his Afghanistan — but the human costs would be intolerable. Short of that, I’d be very clear: If he wants to come down from the tree in which he’s lodged himself, he’s going to have to jump or build his own ladder. He has completely contrived this crisis, so there should be no give on our part. China is watching — and Taiwan is sweating — everything we do in reaction to Vlad right now.
OK now here it’s getting kind of weird, he’s in tree? Is he still a giant? Is the tree a sequoia or something? Does he have tools in the tree to build a ladder? Dunno. And China is watching, which, good, because we for sure are still trying to date and sex China. Which makes Putin mad. Give this man another Pulitzer.
Sigh, if Thomas Friedman is making the same points I am then I am definitely missing something.
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I definitely don’t think we should send troops, just weapons and supplies and intelligence support.
And I’m skeptical that Russia can achieve its goals with the limited means you describe. They need troops in Donbas now to prop up the separatist regions.
I somehow find the circulated numbers of 100k troops pretty low compared to what the numbers were during WW2. Ukraine isnt that small.
This sordid plot got very confusing very quickly. Maybe some sort of system of equations in 3 variables would help.