Making mountains from soundbites is a cancer in modern politics. There is a sea of solid, legitimate reasons to dislike Liz Trusts without resorting to that. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Usually yes, but discussing the use of nuclear weapons I think is an exception.

The West has made mountains of every mention of Putin not even mentioning nukes but indirect language of tools and so on.

When it comes to nukes there is very good reason to make mountains of few words.

Context matters. This is like Tucker Carlson's latest shitty attempt to prove the US attacked the Nord Stream pipeline by playing a soundbite from a response specifically about Nord Stream 2, which never even opened, and was already canceled after the invasion began. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I would agree this doesn't prove anything, but it is clearly a direct threat, and if you are threatening to stop Nord Stream 2 in some vaguely unspecified and clearly illegal way (the legal way would be "oh, we'll convince Germany with sound economic arguments") it stands to reason you maybe threatening Nord Stream 1 as well, which accomplishes the same thing.

The context here is a hypothetical where the PM of a country with what is essentially a "no first strike" doctrine gets dragged down to a bunker and given the "Letters of Last Resort," which are specifically to be used in the event of a nuclear strike on the UK or a decapitation strike that kills the PM and other senior leadership in an expected attempt to disrupt C&C before a nuclear strike. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Again, she does not mention she too agrees it's a last resort, nor implies any understanding there is choices that remain, does not hesitates to say she will "do her duty to launch" (which does not make sense, it's not the PM's duty to launch but duty to decide if indeed the circumstances justify it, and would therefore be other people's duty to launch; that the military believes there is only one further course of military action available does not exclude the civilian authority deciding on another course of action, such as capitulation; exactly why the military is subordinate to the civilian authority in a democracy, in that morality and politics is a wider scope of consideration than the exercise of force and the interests of the people are not synonymous with the interests of the government, much less the leadership or military as such).

Of course, the interaction is supposed to be just basics of MAD: "we'll retaliate!" For, if you do not think your opponent would retaliate, even when retaliation would be a net-loss for your people (inviting both another nuclear strike and more nuclear fallout generally speaking) ... then maybe rational to first strike to force a surrender, which maybe entirely rational to do after a first strike. It's called MAD because it's predicated on making your opponent believe you will not act rationally after a first strike.

On a side note, I find the concept fairly interesting. There are supposedly five letters with the options:

-retaliate with a nuclear strike;
-do not retaliate with nuclear weapons;
-the crew should use their own judgement;
-place the submarine under an allies control, often the US in a NATO context
-if all hope is lost, find Harry Potter — Count Timothy von Icarus

Again, she basically says she'll do her duty (to launch) and not choose what she believes as PM to be in the interest of the UK among the 5 options. So, maybe she didn't understand the question (in which case you should ask clarification) or then, as I say, the question and answer was predetermined but the interviewer went off script. Again, do you want someone who isn't paying attention to detail when nukes are being discussed ... in charge of launching said nuclear weapons?

However, if your retort would be that the whole thing is more insight into the "professional sportification" of politics than UK nuclear policy, I would agree.

As for the letters themselves, clearly those are most of the basic options available, and also there's no plausible scenario at the moment where the decision to use nuclear weapons by a member of NATO is not a US decision.

In terms of US policy, again involving very few words, but the policy recently changed from no-first use, to "defend vital interests". Analysts have written a lot about that too; again, I think for good reason.

Russian language and culture suppression made Putin do it!!! Gentlemen! Here are the facts, not stories,... :snicker: — ssu

These are facts. And the point of this fact is simply to establish the obvious that the Kremlin has obviously been thinking about conflict in Ukraine since 2014, if not before. So, maybe they came up with some sort of game plan in that minimum 8 year period.

The subject is what geopolitical overall strategy may the Ukraine war be apart of. That the war in Donbas is a viable or sufficient or even relevant justification for the invasion or not is a different question.

So according to you Russia's commitment to modernizing it's armed forces is proven by a single test firing of an experimental missile? The massive footage of Russia scraping the bottom of the barrel with 50 year-old tanks sent to Ukraine, with the mobilization troops in conditions that show total unpreparedness for them doesn't refute this modernization, because they test whatever exotic missile they have? Incredible pro-Russian propaganda. :rofl: — ssu

Again, this fact simply establishes that the full scale invasion follows successful weapons development.

Perhaps these are connected in some sort of coherent thought about the subject matter.

The relevance of hypersonic missiles is that, even according to Western analysts, they cannot be shot down with any current technology, and so renders moot the multi-decade anti-missile defence investment of the West to protect key military assets such as bases and aircraft carriers.

US only has a butchers dozen of aircraft carriers so you'd only need a similar amount of hypersonic nuclear missiles to take all or most of them out. Do Russians have enough such missiles? Do they actually work reliably? We don't know.

Whow. I really haven't heard such blazing over the top apologism from anyone in this thread for Putin. — ssu

Again ... the position I'm arguing against is the idea Putin has no plan whatsoever, nothing connects the dots, it's just one mistake and blunder to the next and the Russian state will collapse months ago.

Definitely I would agree an equally compelling case as to the one I've rebutted could involve Putin thinking of some, if not all, of the factors I listed, but nevertheless thought the war would be over by now, that Ukraine would negotiate and not fight (from Putin's perspective at least) beyond any rational reason to do so, and that Russia simply lacks the capacity to sustain the conflict in Ukraine and Geopolitically.

It's called a debate, I've come up with a proposal that argues against that of my opponent (that Putin has no any plausible geopolitical plan; the bar set is basically even remote plausibility, which is a low threshold); the stage is open for anyone to argue my proposal is not plausible or some other proposal is more plausible (such as Putin did have a plan, but it relied on Ukraine settling and we're not in uncharted territories).

This was basically totally normal during Cold War. — ssu

I don't disagree, they are still acts of war.

And, my position is that basically the policy framework is the same as in the cold war with each side doing as much as they can "get away with" to obstruct or weaken the other.

Of course, there's no objective standard of what acts of war are ok and which aren't, it's somewhat subjective to the other side.

For example, bringing nuclear missiles to Cuba turns out was "too much" for the Americans, and the Soviets therefore backed off to maintain the basic policy framework.

In this situation in Ukraine, what would be "too much" for the Russians I honestly don't know, but what's clear is that (so far) support to Ukraine has been in this policy framework of not harming Russia in any vital way.

On a spectrum that involves giving nuclear weapons access to Fidel ... what US is doing in Ukraine is pretty low-key in comparison.

Of course, as always, MAD policy requires trying to make the other side believe you're willing to use nuclear weapons, so how far is the rhetoric to the actual use of nuclear weapons I honestly have no clue, but obviously closer than before the war.

What we can analyse is that the US does not have any obvious response to Russia using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. It's obviously not an act that would trigger all out nuclear war, nor even that a nuclear response would be reasonable. Of course, US would like Russians to believe they are unreasonable. So, who is deterring who more to not-do-what is the question.

Likewise, we may not know what the US would do, but there are obvious ramifications with Russia's friends and own population and so on, so launching nukes to win a battle is not some sort of casual decision. I'd argue tactical nuclear weapons are a big advantage to have in a war, but there's still plenty of other reasons not to use them, some of which may explain why they have so far not been used.

Let's not make things more complicated than they are. This war could be over tomorrow and everything back to normal if the regime had the good sense of offing Mr. Putin. One bullet would be enough. — Olivier5

Who's disputing that Russia could withdraw entirely from Ukraine, whatever definition, tomorrow?

Question was what geopolitical strategy might there be to explain ... Russia obviously not doing the above and in the process of withdrawing.

If you want to say Russia is in the wrong and no amount of Ukrainian KIA is too little to demonstrate that moral conviction (just not you personally), even without any theory of a pathway to victory now or later, and, largely due to that lack of a feasible plan,Russia wins, ok, feel free to argue that's a good moral and political idea.

However, was I commenting on that one way or another?

And what's "One bullet to the head would be enough" other than wishful thinking that A. that is likely to happen and B. that would change Kremlin policy rather than consolidate it?

And yet you say my analysis is off the mark?

Sometimes your side loses a contest, doesn't matter who was right or wrong, just how reality plays out.

Furthermore, the entirety of my last posts is trying answer the simple question of why would Putin and Xi start this contest of geopolitical confrontation.

Certainly they thought it was a good idea at the time, or why would they do it?

People are free to argue they thought it was a good idea for other reasons (that the war would certainly be over in 3 days and the preparation for a longer war and sanctions was coincidence) or then free to argue that perhaps they did have a plan that seemed good to them, perhaps what I propose hits some key points, but they will nevertheless lose before the mighty-might of the USA. Likewise, there's also the theory available that Russia feels cornered and these are moves from a weaker position; that they cannot actually accomplish any of the key points, or then those points don't matter, but it is a "good try" to avoid the much stronger US position and containment strategy.

The question was basically demonstrate any plausible geopolitical sense at all for Putin's actions, so I've proposed one as a starting point for discussion.

There are certainly alternatives available to what I propose in terms of what the Kremlin's real plan was and is, as well as the chances of success, which I do not say it must and will succeed but only that there are reasons to believe it is possible to come out stronger in comparative terms after such a conflict (indeed, even if the conflict is a blunder and bad for everyone, it improves Russia and China's relative position of geopolitical strength anyways; intentions, plans, actions and results are all related but also distinct from each other).

Certainly USA does not risk state collapse anymore than Russia, and arguably less, so it's a question of changing relative geopolitical balance of power and paying a price to try to do so.

And definitely I would agree Putin is taking serious risks to do so, my argument is only that there is facts around that support the idea the risks are calculated and the whole thing is not a miscalculation, essentially by definition, for the simple reason that the West disapproves.

The war does not achieve Western values and ambitions as manifest by Western social media; that is for certain, but that in itself does not make it a mistake from some other point of view. Maybe from Putin's point of view NATO is evil.

You may say you don't care about Putin's point of view. Ok, but then you don't care about diplomacy with Putin, and if you don't care about diplomacy you are essentially committing to the idea that unlimited Ukrainian suffering and dying is justified to demonstrate your (a non-Ukrainian) commitment to rebuking diplomacy with Putin.

Since this isn't really a coherent argument, but rather reactionary ideological emotionalism maintained in a cocoon of tweets and memes and the soothing voices of ex-generals, then it is no surprise, from this point of view, that fantasy is required to support such an emotional state suppressing any and all rational criticism (that can distinguish between wish and responsible action); you know, fantasy of the kind that Putin will be shot tomorrow and it will all end in a sea of flowers in rifles and the rise of the Russian 60s hippy collapsing the Russian state in a red haze of rad techno tunes. Revolution. Fresh.

Did you forgot the USSR and the German very very Democratic Republic? — Olivier5

The Nazi state did not collapse in WWII, but they lost the war maintaining the state even under conditions of sending children to fight to keep defending the state and even after Hitler died.

Russia and the West did not roll into a failed state but accepted surrender of an intact state and then oversaw state transition and reorganisation.

If anything, Nazi Germany is a testament to just how resilient states apparatus is, even under the most brutal of conditions of literally fighting to the bitter end far beyond any rational hope or moral theory of any kind whatsoever other than state worship.

As for the Soviet Union, again this involved no state collapse as the USSR was a supranational governance of different states and the collapse of the USSR was an orderly transition to new state reorganisation of state power, as far as legal structures go.

Whole reason the current war is happening is precisely because the fall of the Soviet Union did not involve any state collapse, neither Ukraine nor Russia, but mere reorganisation of the existing state power within the Soviet Union.

An analogy on a small scale would be Brexit, which clearly does happen.

However, even if you want to consider them both state collapse, neither are examples of states collapsing under the conditions of having gained territory in a war and suffering less losses than their opponent.

The original proposed mechanism for state collapse was the sanctions, which are still there, but again there are no examples of state collapse due to sanctions. So, no surprise that didn't work for the first time this time. If anything, sanctions make the state weaker in some ways but stronger internally relative their own population.

The new proposed mechanism is state collapse due simply to an unpopular war ... arguably supported by a majority of Russians, so, again, has never caused state collapse before and there has so far been no argument put forward here nor elsewhere that "this time it's different".

↪boethius This also reads like fiction.

I really think people here have a tendency to extrapolate all sorts of stories from a minimum of facts. — Benkei

As @Isaac mentions, the question of "show me one plausible scenario" requires extrapolation to answer.

However, I am at least putting undisputed facts about the past together, rather than telling a story about the future Russian state collapse with neither plausibly sufficient, if any, facts nor any historical precedent that states have any tendency at all to collapse in such situations before.

What are facts:

1. War has been going on since 2014 with Russian language and culture suppression, that, at minimum, is likely to attract the Kremlins attention as a problem to deal with.

2. We know there have been giant gas fields discovered in the Donbas and around Crimea (experts, industry and nations certainly believe it's there in any case).

3. Russia heavily invests in modernising its armed forces since 2014 as well as preparing for sanctions. That the Russian economy and currency survive essentially maximum sanctions is I think good evidence they adequately prepared for the latter, and that one of the first things they do is launch a hypersonic missile is good indication of the former; the war launched, by definition, after accomplishing these pre-conditions.

4. We know Putin went to Xi to get, if not a blessing, a common understanding on the war and what China's policy would be.

5. We know Germany rejected approving Nord Stream 2 and the West has been "punishing" Russia over Crimea and the Donbas war in various ways since 2014.

6. We know energy crisis is hurting the West at China, India et. al. benefit, in at least relative terms.

7. Lastly, we know Putin is a sophisticated enough in his thinking and planning to navigate the halls of power for several decades without any major self-inflicted harms to himself or Russia, and certainly doing better than his predecessor which is the only objective comparison standard. Certainly anyone can lose their grip on reality at any moment, but there is no indication that's true of Putin so far.

8. We know that Russia prepared and successfully carried out rapid occupation of a majority of the 4 regions they are in the process of annexing.

The proposal of the Western media and many sympathisers is that these facts are unrelated by any coherent viewpoint from Putin, the Kremlin or the Russian military. That it's all one big miscalculation at best and irrational at worst (that's the acceptable spectrum of opinion on the issue).

Now, regardless of whether a plan ultimately will works or not, is independent of whether a plan makes sense and certainly if a plan exists in the first place. I can lose pretty badly but still have a reasonable plan of action given my capacities and the circumstances.

Indeed, especially if you believe the West is intrinsically superior, US the super power and Russia a joke, then if the USA is "out to get Russia" (which their propaganda since well over a decade would suggest, framing Russia as the adversary, moving missiles closer to Russia, attacking directly Russian interests such as Syria, supporting a coup in Ukraine etc.), then it's entirely possible we are seeing the best geopolitical plan possible ... yet it may still not work due to intrinsic weaknesses.

For example, if we were to duel in some way on your area of professional expertise, I would assume I would lose but that doesn't mean I can't come up with a good plan, try to surprise you in some way, make things chaotic and create chances of victory by mere happenstance roll of the dice than meticulous planning.

Indeed, the right kind of chaos favours the weaker party ... which is exactly why we maybe seeing chaos right now. But chaos can also favour the equal or even stronger party (a solid structure can more easily withstand chaos that can easily overwhelm an unprepared adversary) ... which is exactly why we maybe seeing chaos right now.

Who is weak geopolitically and who is strong cannot be determined by observing Western media.

A. US has aircraft carriers and a lot of bases and high-tech spying, strategic isolation from conventional attack at home, technology expertise and tech multi-national corporations, world reserve currency but lot's of debt, obviously nuclear weapons, and allies (that the current trajectory will significantly weaken economically and diplomatically speaking)

B. Russia and China together have critical commodities, production capacity of tangible goods, some high tech weapons and large land armies impractical for NATO to attack, no debts and in fact lot's of different reserves, also lot's of spies but more focus on lower-tech humans, and if not allies then many friends who are strengthening economically and diplomatically in the current trajectory (at least in relative terms).

The world currently is more ideologically aligned with Russia and China than the US and NATO. Authoritarianism in all its forms is on the ascendancy (even in NATO).

If you can:

A. Knock out the US' allies as relevant parties to world affairs (i.e. isolate the US).
B. Fracture the world economy so US tech multinationals are less relevant and setup an energy arbitrage situation providing China, India and co. competitive advantage across the board.
C. Create an alternative to the USD as world reserve currency.
D. Create a situation where nations are desperate for real access to goods and commodities rather than debts to purchase them.
E. Counter US military power with some key leverage points (hypersonic missiles) and building a non-sea based Asian trade system.
F. If your lower-tech intelligence can at least mitigate US higher-tech intelligence enough to operate.

Then you will unseat the US as the world's superpower.

The war in Ukraine in combination with real environmental and depletion problems, puts pressure on all the above points.

Of course, for it to be some "plan" you'd have to know things in advance such as the West bringing down massive sanctions.

However, you don't actually have to "know" that, you just have to be sophisticated enough to simply have two ways things can go: detente and peace with the West or then extreme escalation: Simply put the choice on the table by starting a big war. The EU, if not the US, definitely took the blue pill of continuing to live in their illusions. As for the US, certainly a formidable opponent and, at the least, we can certainly suspect Russia and China to at least believe direct confrontation was and still is a worthwhile contest compared to the alternatives.

I don't know what Putin's ambitions are. But if he thought using tactical nukes would give him Ukraine, I think he would use them. — Paine

Yes, until now nuclear deterrence has limited arms shipments to Ukraine and things like:

Suddenly, clearing Ukrainian air space would not look so provocative. — Paine

As NATO denied Zelensky's request for a no-fly zone despite being a literal social media deity.

However, what would precede the use of nuclear weapons would be a framing war of who's provoking who, such as the long range missiles.

The US is giving (not selling) arms to Ukraine, providing training and managing strategy and tactics "indirectly" via "advice", and providing the intelligence required for planning and targeting. These are obvious acts of war along with the sanctions.

Of course, as long as NATO maintains it's current policy of not supporting the Ukrainians "too much" there's no reason for Russia to use tactical nuclear weapons, but of course that possibility and the strategic and diplomatic problem it would create has been the deterrence so far for the policy to drip-feed support to Ukraine to ensure Russia cannot actually lose.

Again, if that wasn't the policy, why is US sending more HIMARS to Ukraine now? Obviously they aren't "essential" to US defence, so why not just send them before if you want Ukraine to win?

Also, there's still a bunch of escalation steps available between now and the use of tactical nuclear weapons, of which the Nord Stream attacks are a next step.

Definitely, circumstances would need to be that China and India would not change their current policies (or then that's what the Kremlin believes), which is a high bar.

I mean, it's a dumb question. What is the answer supposed to be: "well, after we've come under nuclear attack, I might start having second thoughts about the doctrine of retaliation?"Or maybe "hmmm, I suppose I be paralyzed by fear and unable to act?" All you can really say about strategic deterrence is "yes, no doubt should exist, we will retaliate." Hell, you'd say that even if you're arsenal didn't actually work. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The question is not dumb and the answer is not "we will retaliate".

Nearly certainly, the question and answer is setup before hand, precisely to just nuclear sabre rattle.

Maybe watch the video before commenting.

The interviewer does not say "will the UK retaliate if it comes under nuclear attack", the question does not even include a scenario, just that the PM is brought down to the bunker to order a nuclear attack (implying it's not even her decision) and the question is actually just how she feels about it.

The prime minister of the UK then does not demonstrate any understanding of what was just said, and (very likely) went with a pre-penned response by (I assume) whoever the interviewer was implying controls her actions in the scenario, and so simply declares she'd do it no hesitation. But that wasn't the question, and then the interviewer reiterates that again and she just delivers her response again.

Likely what happened was the Q and A was setup before hand, but the interviewer took creative license or then what to ask wasn't clear enough, and, in any case, the interviewer would assume the prime minister of the UK would be able to interpret words about the use of nuclear weapons correctly and think 2 seconds for an appropriate response.

My guess would be that the interviewer was asked to frame the question presuming the nukes needed to be launched (so not a policy question) and so that the PM could just affirm her willingness to do so as part of classic MAD protocol. However, the interviewer discovers it's difficult to frame a question that presumes nukes need to be launched (especially to the PM who is presumably the deciding person on this) so the scenario doesn't really make any sense, and to avoid "assuming you're launching nuclear weapons ... would you be launching nuclear weapons?" in order for things to make sense then if you are assuming nukes are being launched then a sensible question in that framing would be something like "how would you feel about that?".

Everyone else in the nuclear chain of command makes sense to ask "you are ordered to carry out a nuclear strike, do you do your duty?" and the journalist mistakingly starts with this framing, but (seems midway through) the journalist realises that makes no sense to ask a PM so he recovers by switching to the question of feeling.

A half-way competent politician would then correct the framing of the journalist (who has no onus of making sense) and then answer a properly framed question and not answer a word salad, especially on the subject of nuclear weapons.

A half-way competent politician would either reframe the question as "if you are asking if all other courses of action have been exhausted and [with the other people involved] it is decided a nuclear launch is the only option remaining, then yes the UK will make use of it's nuclear weapons to defend the United Kingdom and our allies" or then "of course I [and the rest of the people involved] will do everything possible to avoid a nuclear war, but if those terrifying circumstances arise we will not hesitate to defend the United Kingdom and our allies".

However, not correcting the framing of a question as serious as the use of nuclear weapons and then answering the wrong question (the question was about feeling and not duty) simply demonstrates a lack of cognitive competence in terms of interpreting what people are saying, self-awareness (being the PM discussing nuclear weapons), and of course a total and complete lack of emotion and empathy (to not even address the feelings question when it is asked the second time! she simply is unable to process the information as she lacks the emotional capacity to do so, which also explains the tax cuts to the rich in the middle of a energy cost crisis) from someone you'd very much want to be cognitively competent (as they have the power to launch nuclear weapons).

Now, I get it, the political right nowadays has a mental and emotional expectation from the highest offices of governance of literally elementary school, but that reference point is dumb. Demonstrating the prime minister of the UK has as much composure, argumentative sophistication and understanding of social interactions as an 8 year old is not an appropriate standard of high state office.

Putin can be a mediocre autocrat and still have more than one reserve plan, he can be clouded by ambition and still think strategically a few years ahead, these aren't difficult tasks. — Isaac

I've been meaning to ask you as an actual professional of these things what would need to be proven for a judge to consider an actor "irrational". Maybe people would propose some other standard, but I think it's an interesting reference point regardless.

Your summary above is spot on: you need a lot more than some mistakes to consider someone irrational. And ... it's one of those "call me in 300 years" to even really be sure what was a mistake or not. Russia totally collapse with this a contributing factor as @ssu says may happen; sure, big mistake, no dissenting opinion from me on that one ... but people pretend like that has already happened somehow.

It used to be called "voting with one's feet", in the good old days of the USSR. — Olivier5

Again, any evidence this has a chance to stop the war? Will all these people be signing up to fight to Ukraine?

How many will just return to Russia after they get their first energy bill?

Propaganda victories can be short lived (for example if Ukrainian gains are stopped and reversed the recent euphoria will be a distant memory) ... and obviously no amount of propaganda produces victory, although it is pleasant to hear.

No. I asked for a geopolitical account by which he might be understood as a rational actor.
— apokrisis

Why would you be asking me for such an account, what makes you think I have one? — Isaac

I'll give it a shot.

The West insists the war is a "mistake" or "miscalculation" as basically Westerners don't approve. I think this sentiment is more-or-less just the emotional praxis of cancel culture applied to Russia and with zero context.

The war is presented as something happening totally out of the blue and unprovoked.

Obviously it's not out of the blue and has been going on since 2014 and teasing Ukraine joining NATO and therefore moving NATO weapon systems into Ukraine, and in the meantime arming and training Ukraine, is obviously a provocation. Of course, one can argue that these conditions do not satisfy a just war hypothesis along US' standard of invading Iraq (or then argue both aren't a just war), but, putting the moral evaluation aside, the context is important to actually understanding the situation.

For, after the civil war broke out there was 2 agreements (agreed by all sides) to end the fighting, the Minsk accords:

The Minsk agreements were a series of international agreements which sought to end the Donbas war fought between armed Russian-backed separatist groups and Armed Forces of Ukraine, with Russian regular forces playing a central part.[1] The first, known as the Minsk Protocol, was drafted in 2014 by the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine, consisting of Ukraine, Russia, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE),[2][3][4] with mediation by the leaders of France and Germany in the so-called Normandy Format. After extensive talks in Minsk, Belarus, the agreement was signed on 5 September 2014 by representatives of the Trilateral Contact Group and, without recognition of their status, by the then-leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR). This agreement followed multiple previous attempts to stop the fighting in the region and aimed to implement an immediate ceasefire.

A map of the buffer zone established by the Minsk Protocol follow-up memorandum
The agreement failed to stop fighting,[5] and was thus followed with a revised and updated agreement, Minsk II, which was signed on 12 February 2015.[6] — Minsk agreements

Azov sympathisers like to say these agreements aren't "fair", well then Ukraine didn't need to sign them.

Again, regardless of the moral status these agreements obviously failed.

Getting into the geopolitics, the context of the war going on since 2014 (and ethnic Russians dying in it) and Russia signing agreements that would create a ceasefire (and mainly Azov and co. continuing the fighting), doesn't matter for Western media but it does matter to other geopolitical actors that Russia deals with.

The war is not out of the blue, and Russia has essentially since 2015 to make their case to their friends and allies that a larger war is inevitable. Simply because the West just ignored this issue, does not mean Russia did and literally 7 years of being able to point to Russia signing the Minsk agreements and Ukraine and the West not implementing them can go a long way to explain when the sanctions came down, essentially no country outside the West joined in, and the West was all Pikachu face all of a sudden.

Likewise, cutting the water to Crimea was a real headache for the Russians, with Crimean agriculture about to be seriously damaged (without fresh water, not only is agriculture more difficult, but salt water seeps in from the sea, from what I've read). And we can't forget the Nazi's, who nearly any Russian, from Putin to the lowliest peasant, is going to be angry about. From the Russian perspective "D-day" wasn't the cathartic moment that defeated the Nazi's, but 20 000 000 dead Russians, and it wasn't so cathartic. So it does not only stir hatred for Nazi's, but also hatred for the West which Russia views as ungrateful for their sacrifice in dealing with Hitler's war machine (an actual existential war with a genocidal maniac, not just rhetoric).

Now, simply because there's nearly a decade to prepare militarily, economically and diplomatically for the war, doesn't mean it's a good idea, but the context that it's not some random act out of the blue, obviously prepared diplomatically in direct and indirect ways, may indicate there is a thought out geopolitical plan, in addition to things like meeting with Xi before the war was launched.

We don't know what conversations between Putin and Xi are like, but we can make an educated guess.

From the Chinese perspective, US is constantly talking about a pivot to Asia (aka. China) and constantly talking about China as the rival super power and so on. The war in Ukraine essentially opens a second front with the US, they now are "pivoting" back to the Europe.

From the Russian perspective, they are constantly sanctioned and threatened with more sanctions, so economic relations aren't friendly and all economic ties with the West are a double edged sword, as easily a benefit as painful leverage (for the exact same reasons as the West is suddenly lamenting it's economic ties).

Unlike in Soviet times, there is now alternative sources for advanced technology. We're also at the end of Moores law for a single processing core, so advanced technology does not improve as it once did in any case.

What this means is not only is there no strong technology dependence relations, but China and India now compete with the West as technology suppliers. You can say Western technology is still "better" but China and India are trying very hard to catchup. One thing that would allow them a competitive edge across the board: cheaper access to energy.

So, let's say Putin determines that the West's failure to deal with Ukraine and make them implement Minsk and the constant propaganda and sanctions and threat of sanctions, all means that the West just aren't good partners, just a source of constant headaches, and China and India can provide everything the West provides in terms of components and technicians to run a commodity based economy of things both China and India really need (being the world's factory).

Now, I have zero problem accepting that the preferred outcome of the war in Ukraine would have been a negotiated peace in the first week of the war with Ukraine, every day since, and even now. However, the levels of preparation for both the war (taking over the south in less than a week) and also economic sanctions (Ruble didn't collapse, infrastructure didn't stop working) tells me at least that the possibility of a long war and total sanctions was thought through and accepted as a second best scenario.

Why would this be? Well, if Putin's perspective is either the West are good partners or then not-partners, he would be in the position of being unable to implement this policy himself. If Putin just randomly one day kicked out all Western corporations from Russia, no one in Russia would understand the move and he's gone insane and all that.

However, if the West implements sanctions that forces Western corporations to leave Russia ... that's not Putin's doing, Chinese and Indian corporations come in and are super happy. Russia is still a sizeable market ... so imagine doing your best to compete, with lower prices and marketing and bribes and stuff, struggling for market share and ROI, and then your competitors just up and leave. It's a pretty great feeling.

So, geopolitically, the value Russia is providing China and India as an outcome of this war, is not really questionable. In return, India and China purchase the energy and commodities and don't sanction Russia.

Of course, that's not really a payment to do the war, just conditions that allow the war to happen.

So what is Russia getting from the war other than just kicking out unreliable partners (from it's point of view)?

Militarily speaking, the Azov sea is a traditionally very weak spot for Russia and the 2000 km border with Ukraine means Russia can be invaded on a massive front just like it did to Ukraine, goes both ways. How much do these things matter in a nuclear age I honestly don't know, both in terms of the real truth and what the Kremlin actually thinks about these conventional military considerations.

So, even ignoring any real military gains, apparently there's giant gas fields right under the Donbas and around Crimea.

I'll stop the analysis here for now, as I need to go to a meeting, but if a Schism with the West and taking these gas fields are a primary motivating factor, with protecting ethnic Russians (whether genuine concern for Putin or not) easy pretext for the war, then one is left to wonder who is baiting who.

Did the US bait Russia into this "mistake" or did Russia bait the US into massive sanctions and refusing reasonable peace deals to take these gas fields and create Russia-India-China alignment? For, the US' analysis was that this would be Russia's "Afghanistan" and so weaken Russia in conventional military terms, which is certainly true in terms of using up Soviet stockpiles. However, if the Soviet stockpiles had a shelf life anyways ... and short term conventional weakness doesn't mean much when you have 6000 nuclear weapons, and therefore the gas fields, water to Crimea, and creating an alternative global financial system is "worth it".

That the Russian invasion of Ukraine is only Western propaganda? Sure. — ssu

What are you talking about?

The issue under discussion was how Ukraine would be victorious, or Russia not-victorious, through military means, such as the collapse of the Russian state.

And I was asking for a citation from this thread or an actual argument.

I know people state that Russia will collapse or that Ukraine will "be victorious", what I'm asking for is how?

The closest I've seen to an actual argument is that low morale will simply lead to the complete dissolution of the Russian armed forces. An argument with zero supporting evidence except anecdotal that some Russians aren't happy (which is not surprising).

The US diplomatic strategy ... finally just talking directly to Russia after all this time insisting only Zelensky can be discussed with ...

Seems to be to try to convince Russia that a conventional military strike on Russian forces would follow the Russian use of a nuclear weapon in Ukraine.

This seems to be grasping at diplomatic straws.

First, if the use of tactical nuclear weapons produces an easy victory in Ukraine then the loss of some military assets elsewhere is simply a "cost of doing business".

Second, the easy retaliation for the US striking Russia (a country the US is not at war with) can just be using more nukes in Ukraine, absolutely destroying every base, command centre, logistics hub etc. absolutely decimating the Ukrainian capacity to wage war.

What would be the US response to that? Just a larger conventional strike? And again, even if Russia didn't retaliate against NATO it is easily a net benefit in military terms.

Or, are these "private talks" just the US seeing they've achieved their policy objectives for their constituents the arms dealers and are now willing to wrap things up?

If people have arguments that conventional weapons are a deterrence to nuclear weapons, people are free to explain that. Likewise, why wouldn't Russia simply retaliate with tactical nuclear weapons against the bases which launched these attacks against its forces?

If they did, why would NATO retaliate for that with nuclear weapons of its own if the whole purpose of the conventional attack was to avoid using nuclear weapons, as a full scale nuclear war over Ukraine makes no sense any everyone in NATO knows that.

Solution: resolve the situation diplomatically which is suddenly US and EU officials are talking about.

↪boethius Wasn't that your idea? — Olivier5

You state that once the territories are annexed that there's nothing left to negotiate.

There is obviously the rest of Ukraine that can be negotiated as well as the use of nuclear weapons, such as trying to negotiate that not happening.

Something the US is currently doing:

Biden adviser: US in private talks with Russia over nuclear weapons to avoid public ‘tit for tat’ — The Hill

Another word for "private talks" is "negotiation".

Right on, boethius. No one has ever convincingly explained or made any sound hypothesis that this war might not be a victory for Russia. Because it's all just Western propaganda. Like the talk that Russia would invade Ukraine, in the first place. — ssu

Please cite the hypothesis if it's been made.

And, you've already moved the goal posts as your criteria for "not victory" includes things like technically winning a war but it "has some consequences".

What was under discussion was the idea that if Ukraine fights long enough the Russian state would simply collapse. This was the proposed mechanism of "win".

What a splendid idea! The West could nuke Moscow and Saint Petersbourg, putting Putin in a stronger position to negotiate peace. — Olivier5

Impossible to make sense of your statement here.

But the poor war did have some consequences. — ssu

Yes, indeed, let's sacrifice every single Ukrainian for a chance to "have some consequences".

As an observation of the legacy of the war, you maybe right, who knows, but how does that benefit Ukrainians in either case?

Let's see then how triumphant the victorious Russian forces are then, shall we? — ssu

Exactly, this is the position you're supporting along with the other pro-NATO policy and Zelenskyites:

See if the Russians lose for as of yet unexplained reasons at the cost of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian lives and the near total destruction of the Ukrainian economy.

And not only that, but lose against a smaller force that now needs to be on the offensive, seen as the Russians have already conquered a large majority of the territory they mean to annex (they clearly still want to conquer the rest, but they don't need to).

In addition to being able to shutdown the Ukrainian grid at any time and have nuclear weapons to deal with problematic situations if they want.

We're been out of the loop Isaac, to comment on geopolitics one must know every single living language, as well as all the dead ones for context.

Once the 'referenda' have run their course and the occupied territories are integrated to Russia, there won't be anything left to negotiate. — Olivier5

There is the rest of Ukraine to negotiate over and avoiding or inviting the use of nuclear weapons.

It's sad that so many on the left fall for the pro-or-soft-on-Putin crap, but not all do. — Jamal

Being "hard on Putin" NATO could have done by sending NATO troops into Ukraine before the war to defend a dear ally, create a standoff and then negotiate a resolution a la Cuban missile crisis (which would be easy to do).

Otherwise, the available means to be hard on Putin is to nuke him.

If you're not willing to nuke Putin then the only available options are soft options.

As for sanctions, they have never been demonstrated to bring about regime change.

So, what are the hard options available to "deal with Putin"?

The "hard on Putin" position since over a decade is simply incendiary rhetoric which, at the end of the day, only serves to support US imperialistic policies and not harm or deal with Putin in anyway.

↪ssu I’m not a big fan of boethius’s view, but I have to say, your reaction to his statements of fact is just bizarre. — Jamal

Unfortunately, most of this debate is arguing with obvious denial of facts (there are definitely more Nazi's in Ukraine with more power than in the typical Western army and government) or then unsupported hypotheticals presented as likely (such as Russian state on the brink of collapse), and I try to keep my arguments focused one positions I intend to defend.

Furthermore, the purpose of the denialism and unsupported hypotheticals is not to argue them in any sort of good faith way, or that their proponents even believe them despite the lack of supporting evidence and analysis, but rather to tease out a normative agreement for the purposes of tribal-group think.

For example, if I disagree that Putin is literally Hitler, I am supposed to annex my argument with "but of course Putin is super evil and bad" or then if I disagree that the Russian state is on the brink of total collapse I am supposed to preamble that with "of course the Russian state should collapse!".

I don't play into that because I don't like propaganda.

Furthermore, the moral evaluation of Putin should nevertheless have supporting arguments. The "hyperbole", as one poster refers to himself, followed by "of course Putin is still bad" is a way to get agreement on a moral evaluation of Putin without any facts, analysis or values.

If I say "Putin is bad", the standard I set for myself is I have reasons I'm willing to explain for saying that.

My priority in this discussion is a diplomatic resolution, and morally evaluating Putin is not necessary for a diplomatic resolution.

If other's have as their priority the moral evaluation of Putin, they are free to present an argument and if it's convincing then I can just say I agree to it.

My purpose in pointing to the Nazi's in Ukraine is that obviously many Russians are upset about it, which is important to understand their world view which is important in finding a diplomatic resolution.

That there are too many Nazi's in Ukraine and therefore we must invade and destroy them, is, for me, a completely sound argument: the conclusion follows from the premises. Of course, maybe the premise is false, that there aren't enough Nazi's in Ukraine to satisfy the Wests own definition of "appeasement" of Nazi's; that is a complicated journalistic and political question. How many Nazi's with how much power are in Ukraine exactly? And where do we draw the line between "not relevant" and "too many" politically speaking.

Again, people who's priority is merely condemning the Russians in order to justify any and all Ukrainian suffering (and the world for that matter) should present their argument (the sources that plausibly establish "how many Nazis" and the political theory that answers "how many is too many"). It's their priority and not mine, if their arguments are compelling I can simply agree to them.

My priority is a diplomatic resolution and for that solutions must be found that are also reasonable for the Russian perspective, and what the Russian perspective "ought to be" is hardly relevant in that.

To take another example of something taken for granted in the West but no argument is ever presented to support it, the current votes in South Ukraine are simply announced as "a sham".

However, although on the surface it may seem a vote carried out under an occupying force is coercive and illegitimate, or then the "real law" there is Kiev's, these are not so easy positions to argue.

Both positions the West would not support in other contexts. For example, votes in both Iraq and Afghanistan after the US invaded and occupied are completely legitimate according to the West. And, obviously, if conquest was not a valid form of changing legal systems then the entirety of America would be given back to Native Americans and all the borders of the world would radically change overnight.

It would be a complicated task to resolve these sorts of questions without resorting to "it's legitimate when the West does it because we say so!"

If the people of these Southern Oblasts genuinely want to separate from Ukraine and join Russia, then it is indeed liberation according to the Wests own standards (that Iraqi's genuinely didn't want Saddam's form of government, and Afghani's genuinely didn't want the Taliban's).

Of course, how do you establish what people genuinely want (on average) without a vote? But how does an occupying army, such as the US, carry out such a vote if no vote under occupation is valid?

The answer to that is of course the vote is valid because we already know what the population feels about it.

Which sounds circular reasoning, and formally it is, but the world is a lot messier than formal arguments and we can get an idea of what a population thinks by both culture and journalism.

Ok, applying all this to Southern Ukraine, we do know there are a lot of ethnic Russians there that speak Russian and, we can safely conclude, based on "cultural knowledge", that they maybe genuinely upset about the Russian language being banned and other cultural genocidal practices; which the West may support this sort of cultural genocide when "we do it" but maybe the Russians feel differently (again, how people see things and feel about things is critical for finding a diplomatic resolution).

Of course, with the right journalistic evidence we maybe convinced that only a tiny majority support joining Russia and therefore the votes are illegitimate. Point being, things are not so simple as they appear in Western media.

As for Putin's moral character, again it's not so easy to condemn Putin.

If he's as evil as people in the West say ... why hasn't he nuked us yet. It seems incompatible with extreme levels of evil to have nukes and not use them.

Additionally, I try to avoid moral evaluations of people, but when I do my criteria is always comparing to a similar class of people and not some immutable set of actions I deem "moral". In this case, Putin's peers are other authoritarians ... but in Putin's case no one really disputes that he has the support of a majority of Russians; which definitely "sounds like democracy" to me.

Compare that to the US Senate ...

A national leader supported by a majority of their people is difficult to morally condemn. The people can be wrong ... but then it's the people that are condemnable and the leader a mere tool expressing that.

Of course, one may argue that the Russian people only support Putin because of Putin's propaganda ... but good luck trying to convince me there's no propaganda in the West.

We then therefore conclude that all nation-state leaders are morally condemnable, but then we come up against my criteria of comparing people to their peers; there being no reason to single out Putin in particular.

The reason we condemn Hitler, Stalin and Moa, is because their actions go far beyond their peers of national leaders (during the same epoch ... again, if British and other previous genocides are fair game, they become far more banal, just happen to be the last members of the same list: nothing more unusual than that, someone has to called out last in attendance).

Now, my point in explaining all this is not to present my views on these topics, but to point out they have not been debated and they are not my priority so I don't have time to evaluate these topics, take a position, present my arguments and have even more time to defend them.

They would be interesting to debate, but no one is actually debating these issues, but rather engaging in a series of factual denials and unsupported hypotheticals in order to argue against the position that diplomatic resolution involving compromise (sort of necessary for diplomacy to happen) is not the best possible outcome for Ukrainians.

Mere inconvenience. Putin Strong!!! — ssu

The idea that Ukrainians should keep fighting and dying for the strategy that Putin is weak internally and eventually the whole Russian state should collapse, yes, should have more than just virtue signalling as a basis.

Otherwise, the Russian army and reserves are far larger and now on the defensive and have all the benefits Ukrainians had defending Kiev, and the Russian army can disable the entire Ukrainian grid at will, and also has nuclear weapons that it can deploy at any moment. So, without the mechanism to somehow collapse the Russian state, there are not presently favourable battlefield conditions.

If the proposal that there is a mechanism to collapse the Russian state is wrong, then the cost of being wrong is literally hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and the entire Ukrainian economy: dead.

It's repeated over and over that it's their land and they can fight and die for it if they want. Ok, sure, but if the fighting and dying doesn't accomplish anything, is it still worthwhile as some sort of moral Churchillian gesture? (Churchillian gesture the whole West applauds ... but doesn't put their own soldiers in this noble quest)

Of course. A daily normal occurence in Dagestan. :blush: — ssu

I just was talking to an American a few days ago who was complaining about the love of people where she comes from for firing into the air on every holiday, (triggering PTSD of veterans was the gripe about it).

In Turkey the army fired into a crowd with a helicopter ... and that didn't bring down the government.

So again, feel free to argue that this one soldier in some random outpost firing into the air to warn a hundred or so people is some ground shaking political event in Russia that changes everything, or that compared to the protests at the start of the war "this is different" and will lead to full scale revolution.

Otherwise, it's just that "pointing out some true things for propaganda purposes" that you complain Russia does.

Vietnam comes to mind. — Olivier5

Vietnam is not an example of protesting a war leading directly to the collapse of the US government or ending the war or anything remotely similar to what's being continuously predicted will happen in Russia. US stayed in Vietnam for years even after the majority of the public was clearly against the war, of which large protests is more a manifestation than a cause (good arguments to question why the US was in Vietnam).

And even if you want to particular emphasise the role of protests (compared to other political discourse) then that's still one single example that does not serve as a good analogy: the war was thousands of kilometres away from US shores, North Vietnam was not a threat to the US, domino theory was speculative, and the war went on for years and years, before the US withdrawing under a ceasefire and not surrender conditions ... and, again, the US government did not entirely collapse.

Wars eventually end but there are no examples I know of where protests like we see in Russia somehow lead directly to the end the war.

More 'anecdotal' videos... — ssu

Firing into the air is pretty normal in some cultures. Certainly would be a "huge deal" in the West, but a good indication that it's not a big deal in Dagestan is that no one in the crowd seems at all alarmed.

There is zero reason to believe small protests are about to take down the entire Russian state.

We had massive protests in the West against the war in Iraq, all sorts of drama ... wars still happened.

There's almost no examples of protests stopping wars that the people in charge are set on.

Furthermore, Western propaganda is starting to be a broken record of protests, Russian lines collapsing, low morale, Putin about to die or be assassinated, logistical problems dooming their operation, incompetence and "miscalculations" at every level, and so on, with a few choice anecdotes.

People are free to argue that "this time is different" but that requires actually arguing that.

Otherwise, these positions are essentially "there's much less evidence for this belief that Russian collapse is imminent as there was 6 months ago ... and I believed it then and I'm believing it now."

And this is the Websites Isaac uses: — ssu

You criticise a source by posting an unsourced criticism of that source?

People are free to provide a different military analysis to the main points. Currently there's not really any debate because the other position here is simply fight long enough and the Russian state will just magically go away somehow.

On the diplomatic front, as I've said previously it's difficult to analyse as the trial period of "open source diplomacy" of simply reporting every meeting between world leaders in real time seems to have ended.

However, there are some signs of diplomatic advancement. There's this recent prisoner exchange brokered by Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and now India and China are calling for a diplomatic end to the conflict, and also both Putin and now it seems Zelensky have stated they want an end to the conflict.

In particular the prisoner exchange seems super bizarre timing if it was not in the context of steps towards a diplomatic resolution.

Although it seems difficult to imagine what a compromise would be at this stage, it's of course always possible. If Ukraine is simply unable to sustain the current offensive (even regardless of US support) then that hope maybe simply dashed internally and also hardliners who promised some vast victory now sidelined.

For certain the EU has enormous leverage in the situation and can easily use it to broker a peace deal.

A recipe for a resolution could go something like this:

- Ukraine enters the EU on some fast track process.
- Russia gets sanctions dropped and Nord Stream 2.
- Russia pays for rebuilding of Ukraine (which is obviously just recycling some of the massive profits of dropping sanctions).
- The territorial question is of course the tricky part, but that could be resolved by agreeing to have another vote after peace is restored, people return to these regions; something that the world community would accept as legitimate, outside observers etc. If holding onto the territories is an obstacle to a peace deal that Russia actually wants, "giving the territory back" is problematic after annexation, however, the various regions having another vote in x time could be a reasonable compromise for everyone. "Will of the people" At least in principle Ukraine is "fighting" for the right of self determination, and Russia is claiming these regions can leave Ukraine and join Russia based on a vote, and presumably the EU is democratic and maybe even the US, so there's at least no issue in principle. Of course, you'd want to come to this deal before these regions are officially annexed, as Russia wouldn't want the precedent of one of its territories being able to vote to leave.

Of course, a peace deal could be something else entirely, depends on who wants what and what people are willing to give, but my basic point is that there's always creative solutions to negotiation impasses when both parties rather a resolution than continued conflict.

"Strategic ambiguity" may not be a satisfactory response for Zelensky, to name one motivating factor.

And, even if there's nothing much to analyse, although other perspectives on this strange prisoner swap and China and India statements would be welcome, I like to repeat how diplomacy can work as the point of the military analysis is to evaluate the leverage on the table and what is a reasonable deal to take.

There is. Ukrainians are defending their country against a hostile invader. The Russians aren't. — ssu

Your point was about training and quality of skills, not motivation.

And, as from many Russian's perspective, once the 4 Oblasts are officially part of Russia then they will be defending their country against a hostile invader. Likewise, it's possible many Russians happen to share Putin's sentiment that NATO is an aggressive force against Russia and a threat to them.

Additionally, Russia has demonstrated it has highly motivated soldiers able to win in urban environments, so, as I already mentioned, the reservists can have a large impact simply supporting the professional forces.

Ukraine has sent fresh conscripts with little to no training into front line combat, but there's no reason to believe Russia will do the same.

Especially if the consequences are as terrible as talking heads in the West claim, why not just rely on the professional contracted forces in that case for the heavy fighting?

Wow. Sergei Shoigu couldn't say it better. Ukrainian nazis counting that NATO does the fighting for them. — ssu

It's also highly suspected and really little doubt about it, that "ex"-NATO contract soldiers man HIMARS and all the targeting is with NATO intelligence.

How is this not NATO fighting the Ukrainian Nazi's war for them? HIMARS being "the thing" that keeps them in the fight and their proposed path to victory.

a) Since coming into office Putin has tried to push away from a conscription army and veer the armed forces into an volunteer force, which hasn't happened. — ssu

This is definitely true, but this plan does make sense. Invading Ukrainian territory with conscripts / reserves is neither legal nor a good political move; especially at the start of the war where you'd have the current disruption and instability of mobilisation in addition to the sanctions in addition to the unknowns of what would happen in the war (they could not know 100% that they'd take South-East Ukraine so easily).

So, invade with the separatist militia's, Chechians (who "like" fighting, especially white people that dip bullets in lard to taunt them), mercenaries, with support of professional soldiers.

Then, once the front stabilises "enough" and effect of sanctions has smoothed out, annex these regions and mobilise to defend this new territory.

b) Even the Soviet Union had huge difficulties of mobilization it's reserves, which basically were just nothing else than a list of names in a vault. — ssu

Russia has 25 million potential reserves and conscripts and nearly 2 million standing army; I think it's far fetched to say they will not be able to mobilise 300 thousand. It's claimed these will be "low quality troops" but A. there's no reason to assume they'd be any less quality than much of Ukraine's conscript force and B. Russia still has professional and mercenary forces to conduct offensive operations and more man-power to support and defend quiet areas of the front can only help.

c) Russia doesn't have an organization for the mobilization of such quantities of troops and neither have reservists been trained. It would be different if Russia would have done refresher training to reservists after their military service and trained these as units. It hasn't done that. — ssu

Reservists have been trained. The usefulness of periodic 2 weak refresher training is debatable. A lot of military tasks require only following orders by average people, like just moving shells and boxes around.

A tiny majority? Let's see what that "tiny majority" is like? — ssu

I definitely say "tiny minority" and not "tiny majority".

IT-sector professionals and millionaires. Quite an irrelevant minority there. — ssu

I'm really just not so sure about how many such people will actually leave, and what the economic impacts are. Presumably they'll mostly still do work for their Russian company or for their contract clients, just at distance and more effectively without the stress and bother of war and all that.

Additionally, pretty much any intellectual work nowadays can be done at distance by Indian's and Chinese firms, and they can easily send their specialists when needed who will not fear mobilisation.

I'm just not convinced this is a big economic problem. Certainly the sanctions was an order of magnitude larger economic problem to deal with.

Russia is also not an IT driven economy, but sells commodities, so IT inefficiencies have few short term impacts. When brain drain matters its generally really top tier stuff of making the next unicorn startups and technological break throughs; silicon valley vs. various other competing tech hubs.

Just here in four days over 27 000 Russians have come over the border. Of course, some go back even here you are talking about thousands fleeing the mobilization. And Georgia and Kazakhstan it's far bigger. Finally Finland is tightening the visas to come here. — ssu

This is a tiny amount of people compared to the Russian population, mostly who don't have the option to flee, and, as you say, many who do flee will return as soon as the situation is clarified a bit and risk seems lower to them.

Spoken like a true Putin believer. Resistence is futile!!! — ssu

The issue was if Ukrainian fighting can lead to the collapse of the Russian state.

Feel free to propose a scenario where that is likely to happen.

Resistance was definitely not futile at the start of the war but could have lead directly to a negotiated peace on the best possible terms for Ukraine.

However, continuing to fight beyond that point to a mythical moment where the Russian state collapses for essentially unexplained reasons, indeed is futile.

Keep in mind that the majority of the Russian population have fresh memories of the last time they overthrew their government to embrace the West. West didn't hug them back, so I find it exceedingly unlikely they would do so again as they all know it would be an even worse repeat of the disastrous mafia state of the 90s and early 2000's.

The West loves laughing at the Russian misfortune after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but Russians themselves do not join in that laughter but, for the most part, would rather avoid repeating it.

The situation is not the same where Soviet citizens started to truly believe Western propaganda and that they'd all be living like Finns in a few years if the wall came down.

It's a "Fool me once, shame on... shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again," kind of situation.

Wow. Sergei Shoigu couldn't say it better. Ukrainian nazis counting that NATO does the fighting for them. — ssu

That was clearly the plan from the beginning, handing out small arms to civilians, committing to a total war with maximum harm to civilians, and then begging for the no-fly zone.

The Ukrainian Nazi's who really wanted and still want total war certainly believed that NATO would see their righteous plight and come in with their planes and "show the Russians". They would not have been begging for the no-fly zone for so long, even after very clear no's, if they didn't genuinely believe that was possible.

And now, faced with the next disastrous escalation of the war, Ukrainian Nazi's and other "ultra nationalists" and their Western sympathisers, seem to truly believe UN / NATO will nuke Russia in retaliation for Russia starting to use nukes.

The delusions of NATO responding with Nuclear weapons if Russia uses them have been present on this very forum; for example the belief that NATO would give nuclear weapons to Ukraine ... at least a couple to Nuke Moscow and St. Petersburg. How much more delusional can you get?

I see... But NATO is a tool of the devil, isn't it? So since Zelensky is a puppet of NATO... he's one of the devils in any case. Small devil, or big one, I don't know. I leave that to specialists, better introduced than I am to/by the Lord of the Earth in the East. — Olivier5

I'm not following your theology, but please elaborate.

I am new to all this line toeing, you see? Can't seem to get it right. It's like... I put one toe on the line, and then the other toes fall on that side of the line or the other! Maybe if I turned my feet inward? How do you guys do it? — Olivier5

It's not following a line: Russia's leverage in the situation is factual. All the US says about it is "strategic ambiguity," you, or anyone else, is free to speculate what that ambiguity involves that's in Ukraine's favour.

Another way to understand the situation is simply that the West finally picked a fight with someone they can't bomb.

But has the West developed any other way to deal with their problems and "feelings"?

No.

They haven't.

Feel something, bomb something. That's just how we roll baby.

Now, you may say Russia hasn't either; fair, but they have picked a fight with someone they can bomb.

And that my friends, makes all the difference in the World.

Even in the context of environmental crisis denialism, even Jordan Peterson can see the obvious.

Only delusional propaganda supports the current narrative and policies vis-a-vis Ukraine, and it doesn't matter your politics to see these particular obvious facts if you stop eating lies.

Which ... what does Peterson's observation that totalitarianism involves everyone lying to everyone on every level apply to in the current situation?

Zelensky is obviously wrong about everything, since he is a ridiculous comedian, a puppet of NATO, and the devil incarnate. — Olivier5

I don't know man, I don't think the devil's a comedian nor a puppet.

... or are you saying satan works for NATO, the money's just that good?

↪boethius Der Spiegel makes a broader point, that Putin is becoming dangerous for many, including for Russia herself, with all these civilians being sent to the meat grinder. He's also becoming a liability for his allies, such as China. — Olivier5

Definitely Putin is taking large risks and the whole war is a big gamble and makes lot's of people nervous.

However, what matters in material relations, such as business or international politics, is much more actual leverage than emotion.

The West has become accustomed to focusing on the emotions, but only because the material leverage is taken for granted in Western policy decisions. For example, the decision to support revolution in Lybia and then bomb the place may have been due to the simple reason Gaddafi wanted to make a African bank and needed to be punished and Libya (the most prosperous African state by some metrics at the time) needed to be made a failed state so as not to be an example of how to escape Western debt peonage. Let's assume that's true, well it's far easier to just make some emotional story of people struggling for freedom or whatever, to explain the bombing to the home audience for the show (and just completely ignore the question of why bomb Libya rather than any of the other dictatorships around).

Or maybe it really was from the "goodness of their hearts" of the policy makers.

Either way, the perception that results is that it is emotion that drives international and warmaking policy is only possible because the leverage was there. NATO could bomb Libya, could invade and occupy Afghanistan for 2 decades, US et. al. could invade Iraq, drone strikes can be carried out all over Africa and the Middle east, proxies financed and armed etc.

In other words, the leverage exists to carry out these policies, so the emotions drummed up, whether by propaganda or genuine grassroots sentiment, can match the policies because the policies can be done.

But all this emotional driven policy making is not so possible when you don't have the leverage.

China needs Russian energy and commodities ... that doesn't change regardless of what Xi or anyone in China feels about it. So, the West obsesses over how people may feel here or there, but only because Westerners live in the delusion that emotions matter the most.

It's a pretty typical psychological result of too much power and prestige: the "diva".

The situation in Ukraine is simply that the West doesn't have the leverage to get what it wants, so it cries about it, but that doesn't help.

Russia does have the leverage: energy, food, military, nuclear weapons.

What we feel, what the Chinese feel, what the Indians feel, what the Ukrainians feel, and to a large extent what the Russians feel: doesn't mean a thing.

Only when you have the power, the leverage, can you simply translate your feelings into actions. If you feel like fucking up a country that had nothing do to with 9/11 to express your feelings about 9/11? you definitely can if you have the power and leverage to express your emotions that way. You want your servant to do some humiliating task? You definitely can if you pay them enough or they have no where else to go.

Everyone that doesn't have the power in the situation: learns to bite their tongue and digest their feelings: because that's how the world actually fucking works.

It's been that way for a long time.

The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

With all due respect for Zelensky, I don't believe the nuclear escalation is likely to happen. — Olivier5

... Well, well, well, if Zelensky is wrong about this, what else maybe he wrong about?

And it's not even me saying we should prepare for Russia to use nuclear weapons.

Who's saying it?

Zelensky:





So, if you're a supporter of Zelenky's analysis and decision making, and uncompromising devotion to the gods of war, then you should support my message, which is the same (just with the added caveat that Ukraine is not an ally to the US and will be left out in the cold ... or then the fierce heat of the nuclear sun, or why not both!).

↪boethius Not just to the Ukrainians : to the world. — Olivier5

If US / NATO retaliate.

Provide one argument that they would?

Ergo, what's likely? US / NATO will scale back their support for Ukraine as they have no response to Russian tactical Nukes in Ukraine.

The war has achieved US policy generously informed by US arms manufacturers as @Isaac cites above, so why continue?

Let winter pass and by the spring everyone will be so fed up with energy prices that peace with Russia will just be the normal, competent, level headed thing to do by politicians wanting to be reelected. Russia certainly learned its lesson and are sorry, time to turn over a new leaf.

The alternative is not simply that Russia uses tactical nukes in Ukraine, but likely then keeps using them until Ukraine unconditionally surrenders (since Ukraine maybe able, with time, develop their own nuclear weapons or WMD's of some sort with their nuclear material and remaining biolabs).

The other thing to consider is that even Eastern Europe may get cold feet now that they're faced with the consequences of their fanatical support for more war, such as Volkswagen saying they will leave Eastern Europe if the energy situation there doesn't improve (aka. the war with Russia does not come to an end).

Talk is cheap, but we'll see soon enough who has their money where their mouth is.

As I've stated before, your arms dealer is like your drug dealer: you need them for your next fix to keep on going, but they're not your friend.

Dangerously weak — Olivier5

I don't speak german, but I'm pretty sure the key word in that phrase is "dangerous".

Dangerous to Ukrainians, and no one is coming.

↪boethius Sounds legit. :up: — apokrisis

Yes, you can be confident this analysis is legit.

The only retaliation available to the US / NATO for a Russian tactical nuke in Ukraine would be something like striking a Russian base with a tactical nuclear weapon ... which would be followed by Russia striking a NATO base, followed by further tactical nuclear exchanges until it's WWIII and full scale strategic exchange.

Or then NATO strikes a Russian base and Russia strikes a NATO base and ... no response? What does that accomplish?

The only available move is to do nothing. Ukraine is not part of NATO and there exists no legal obligation, national self-interest, much less military reason to strike Russia with nuclear weapons in retaliation for an act in a war ... in which you are not legally at war.

Given this state of things, why wouldn't Russia use tactical nuclear weapons? Spot a tank column: blow up the tank column, is a pretty big military advantage.

The "consequence" of Russia using nuclear weapons last year, for example, would be total sanctions and cutting off the cash cow of selling energy to Europe ... well that lever has already been pulled.

The protests against mobilisation and people leaving the country result in not many people being left willing to protest the use of nuclear weapons.

As has been discussed already, there is a sizeable part of the Russian population that are nationalistic and (just like the Americans) will be happy to see nuclear weapons used for their own national benefit and pride.