Maybe the data from Migration Data Portal is wrong? — Isaac

Or maybe this piece of emigration data means something different from what you think it means. Likely, it reflects historical ties.

How do you know they are better than nothing? How do you know without the West first making the entirely false promises and expectation that Ukraine would one day join NATO in a useful period of time (say anytime before Russia invaded) and also encouraging total war rather than a negotiated settlement early on, Ukrainians would not be far better off? — boethius

Because I suspect the invasion has nothing to see with NATO blah blah. It would have happened regardless of anything related to NATO IMO. The real threat for the Putin regime is Ukraine ´s progressive liberalisation and ultimate EU accession, and the induced socio-economic development. The example of an open society next door is bound to give some untoward ideas of freedom and justice to folks living in the goulag nations of Belarus and Russia.

Behold Ukraine's friends / liabilities: stingy and reactive. — boethius

They are still better than nothing. How many allies does Russia have, again?

Why didn't we? — boethius

Because we are stingy and reactive rather than proactive.

Chatham House? Heard of them? — Isaac

A bunch of pretentious idiots, as far as I can see.

The risk of Russia using nuclear weapons in Ukraine is low, but the consequences will be huge, so we take it very seriously," — Isaac

Yes, NATO takes this risk seriously, I already mentioned that and you disagreed. Now you agree then?

Michel Goya works fro BFM-TV... — Isaac

Ok so you prefer RAND Corporation and NATO top brass. Be my guest... :-) Your experts do not need to be the same as mine. In fact, I would be worried if that was the case, given how poorly informed you are.

Sure. But he can't. — Manuel

Does he know that?

He doesn't rule over Taiwan. — Manuel

No, but he wants to.

Also, it's weird to seriously consider that Xi will rule over everybody. Like, what? — Manuel

Taiwan, for a start.

maybe it's not simply that the West is helping the Ukrainians but also that the Ukrainians are helping the West. — neomac

Of course they are, which is why the West helps them. I mean, I subscribe to your analysis. Ukraine is about the ushering in of a post-UN world, without any notion of collective rules and security, a world dreamed and made by dictators, for dictators.

You don't know who NATO are? Never heard of RAND Corporation? Never come across Carnegie Endowment? — Isaac

Never indeed, for the latter. RAND is a military think tank with good analysts but strongly connected to the US military-industrial complex, which implies a significant bias towards their interests and thus a tendency to take any threat to US military dominance very very seriously, if not to exaggerate them. As for NATO, it is not a think tank or anything like that, and ex NATO officials may disagree with one another on this issue. I’d be surprised if they didn’t.

So, your study of the credibility and biases of the sources you do use — Isaac

You don't?

(I supplied their qualification details) — Isaac

I don't know even their organisations. Never heard of "Swift", for instance.

What might prompt such a time? — Isaac

I could come across one of these guys saying something I find interesting or dubious enough that it warrants additional review.

What checks did you carry out as to their credibility and bias? — Isaac

I checked his sources as much as possible , anbd found out that he relies on microdata from Ukrainian and Russian foot soldiers on the front, Russian milbloggers, and satelite imagery analysis - also uses a lot of excellent newspaper sources such as Medusa. I looked at the amount of data vs interpretation in his videos, at the consistency of his message over time (contradictions are a bit tell tale sign) and consistency with other trusted sources e.g. ISW (the main benchmark of everyone right now), also at the amount of bad news (for Ukraine) he is channeling and the distance he takes with official Ukrainian positions, the latter as a check for wishful thinking tendencies. He past those tests, though I find his quality to be decreasing over time: he provides less and less data, and more and more interpretation, perhaps because less and less open source info is available.

All this to show that this source assessment is not something done once and for all, but a "living document".

why did you choose to believe them over, say, Swift Center analysts, or Alexander Vershbow, NATO’s deputy secretary general from 2012 to 2016, who said that Western leaders had concluded that Russian plans to use nuclear weapons in a major crisis were sincere, raising the risk from any accident or misstep that the Kremlin mistook for war, or Dmitry Gorenburg, an analyst of Russian military policy who said "The escalation dynamics of a conflict between the U.S. and Russia could easily spiral into a nuclear exchange", or Samuel Charap ... — Isaac

Because I don't know who these guys are, never heard of them, and have not assessed their credibility and biases critically and effectively as I tend to do before I trust folks. What I am not prepared to do is trust average 'experts' out there whom I haven't assessed first. Unlike you, I have no intellectual inferiority complex.

So, should a times come when I need to study those guys, I will study them and their biases, and I might end up using them if I can trust them enough. In the meantime, I don't see a point.

Anyone following the thread can see that I've already done that in spades. — Isaac

I don't read your posts much, so I wouldn't know. Last time I did see one of your "experts", he looked 20 years old and fatuous, like a young you, which is perhaps why you chose him?

My go-to experts on military mattersd in Ukraine are Michel Goya, ex-colonel and military historian and commentator, Xavier Tytelman from the website Air&Cosmos, ex-military pilot and aviation specialist, and the good guys in ISW. I also consult this Youtube channel, signaled here by another poster and generally informative.

We're having a discussion. So to take part you need to be able to support your position, explain why you prefer some explanations over others. Otherwise there's nothing to discuss. — Isaac

There is never anything to discuss with you, and we are certainly not having what I would call a discussion. We would need some mutual trust to have a discussion. At best, I use you as a pretext for posting.

So that's our uniformed, pointless analyses done. How dull. — Isaac

Speak for yourself. All you can do is parrot little me, incapable as you are to contribute original ideas.

But what if your mission here was different from just contradicting whatever Olivier says, in a manic, mechanical manner? What if you developed your own ideas and personality, and let the chips fall where they may? It won't be the end of the world if once in a while you happen to agree with me, or with someone else here.

Like why you prefer your analysis over that of the experts reaching a different conclusion? — Isaac

Most experts I've read from (French dudes you wouldn't know of) seem to agree that Ukraine has a good chance of recovering territories, that the Russian army is disorganized and liable to collapse, that Putin's territorial ambitions need to be pushed back against, that the risk of nuclear escalation is exaggerated by Kremlin-affiliated cretins, and that it won't succeed in intimidating Ukraine or NATO. Now do tell what the 'experts' that you are reading about are saying. I'm sure you can find some anglo boys out there, barely weaned from their mother's milk and with fresh oxbridge degrees in their pocket, whom I would not have heard of.

Roberta Metsola
@EP_President

The @Europarl_EN [European parliament] is under a sophisticated cyberattack. A pro-Kremlin group has claimed responsibility.

Our IT experts are pushing back against it & protecting our systems.

This, after we proclaimed Russia as a State-sponsor of terrorism.

My response: #SlavaUkraini
4:45 PM · Nov 23, 2022

I have trouble understanding the war aims of the people who are argue "for Ukraine." . — Manuel

Very simply: a free Ukraine and a free Russia.

The fact that your analysis is limited to two historical examples is the reason why you are not counted among that body of experts. — Isaac

LOL. How could you possibly know that I’m not one of ‘them experts’, for one, and that the reason is precisely that my analysis is limited to two historical examples, for two? This kind of cheap shot is precisely why I will never take you seriously though.

Expert analysts consider the current set of immediate circumstances to present a small but significant risk of nuclear escalation. — Isaac

My analysis is that a very small risk of nuclear escalation exists, additional to what this risk has historically been before February. This risk has evidently already been factored in by NATO members, as evidenced by the lack of allied support for a brand new Ukrainian airforce for instance. That decision was already some form of yielding to the superpower nuclear status of Russia. I think it was enough. In fact I wonder if we shouldn’t revisit the issue of some no-fly-zone, given the current abuse of civilian targets by Russia.

The argument was about the likelihood. — Isaac

If there’s no historical precedent for it, how likely can it be?

As a matter of facts I posted it in response to one of your posts.

So? Who did you think needed telling that? — Isaac

You of course, eternally confused as you are.

:fire:

I keep being amazed at how confused you can be, and then I keep remembering myself that you probably just pretend to be confused; i.e. you're trolling.

As regards the study of history and its place in geopolitical analysis, the way I see it in my non-determinist, anti-historicist Popperian way, historical precedents are useful to show the range of possibilities, the range of potential outcome in a given situation, but they do not constrain that range. History does not repeat itself, it is unpredictable.

IOW, history can tell you that X is a possibility, and has in the past happened after Y, so if you do Y now, there is a possibility of X happening. What history cannot tell you is things like: "X will certainly happen as a result to Y". Historian have no crystal ball.

So, in our case, it is a fact that superpowers have lost wars without using nukes before. Therefore such a thing is historically possible. So if Russia loses to Ukraine, there is certainly a possibility that it will not use nukes. It is also a fact that no superpower faced with an embarassing defeat against a smaller nation, has ever resorted to nukes before. So one can possibly say that "there is no historical precedent for Russia nuking Ukraine." But one cannot say for certain, based on a historical analysis, that Russia will not use nukes in Ukraine. And there is zero historical precedent to say that Russia will certainly use nukes in Ukraine.

But perhaps these nuances are a bit too sophisticated for you.

I don;t think they were different in any significant manner. You are welcome to try and make a case that they were. if you have time to waste.

In my opinion, it is absurd to fear a Russian defeat in Ukraine, as you seem to do, on the ground that they will go nuclear if they lose. That idea implies that all non-nuclear nations must always agree to the will of nuclear nations.

As for evidence, there is a lot of it, which has been posted here by many members, including most importantly, NATO's decision to not implement a No-Fly Zone. — Manuel

Superpowers are perfectly capable of losing a war without using nukes. It has hapened before. Or did the USSR use nuclear weapons against Afghanistan? Did the US use nukes against Vietnam?

I am aware that my "side" is effectively saying that Ukraine is going to have to give up more land. That's not a palatable view, but I happen to think it is the least harmful one. — Manuel

That would be what you are saying, and I congratulate you for your clarity and frankness. But I am not sure that this message is representative of anybody else on "your side", or that there is such a thing as "your side". Others have been more ambiguous.

You cannot process evidence, though, so there'd be no point in giving it to you.

I'm not asking you for data, I'm asking you why you hold the position you do. — Isaac

Which position, again?

You'll have no trouble backing up that opinion with evidence then. — Isaac

No problem at all.

There's a whole army of qualified experts out there publishing their findings from whom you can obtain informed opinion. — Isaac

So why do you ask me? Ask your qualified experts, if you trust them rather than me.

The numbers of dead in the war thus far are not 'armchair reckoning', they are statistics gathered by various expert agencies. — Isaac

You have no idea what you are talking about, displaying all the hubris of the typical armchair cretin, taking himself for God. How many Russians have died in this war so far, pray tell? How many Ukrainians? No armchair reckoning allowed...

The experience of counties under oppressive regimes is not 'armchair reckoning'. Hundreds of historians have carefully reviewed the evidence and reached informed conclusions about how such cultures respond. — Isaac

Oh yeah? Can you list the names of these historians? I'm curious about "how counties under oppressive regimes respond". Like, I am really curious about how the countries under the oppressive regime of the USSR responded. I wonder if Tchekoslovakia or Hungary or Poland ever tried to free themselves from Soviet oppression, and whether they succeeded... That would be interesting to study, no? :-)

I'm not interested in your armchair reckoning. — Isaac

Well then, don't ask questions that require armchair reckoning...

Then on what do we base decisions where there are fewer unknowns? — Isaac

We take decisions based on gut feeling, most of times.

If I say that no nuclear power would accept humiliation at such a scale, I am not defending Putin's actions, I am describing a situation. — Manuel

No, you are just saying something you have absolutely no clue about and no evidence for. Uninformed opinions have zero value; and when taken as facts, they even have negative value (are detrimental). So please stop putting out your uninformed opinion as if they were facts. Try to think before you post, and challenge yourself a bit.

Is the "defeat of Russia" worth gambling a nuclear war? — Manuel

Rest assured that no one is gambling a nuclear war. Biden has told Putin that nukes should not be considered, and Putin has said that nukes are not being considered.

evidence is of fewer total lives lost by that means) — Isaac

There is no evidence of that. Arguably, a thousand year Russian reich over Ukraine would kill many many times more people (over thge years) than a quick war of liberation.

Geopolitics are not a sub-field of mathematics. You cannot base geopolitical decisions on mathematical equations. There are too many unknowns.

I'm asking why you rule out the second option — Isaac

I don't rule it out. The two options are not mutually exclusive and can be pursued concurrently.

Why rule out the first option?

Ukraine different to all those too? — Isaac

Each case is unique. History is not done in a laboratory with interchangeable mice, history is not replicable, and hence the course of history cannot be predicted. Nobody can tell with certainty, faced with situation X, that "based on what history tells us, the right move now is Y", because there never was in history a case that was exactly similar to X.

Beside, it's not like there is no historical precedent for war as a means to freedom. If the UK can wage a just war against the Nazis, then Ukraine can wage a just war against Putin's forces.

What a fucking stupid question. — Isaac

What a fucking stupid answer... The situation in Ukraine is totally different from women vote in the UK or apartheid in SA, and routes available there might not be available here.

Other routes to freedom.

Are there?

They ought, if they want to be free.

At least we aren't pushing for World War III, because Russia is so bad. — Manuel

Nobody is pushing for WW3 here. We just don,t understand why you guys would chose this hill to die on. What is the point of defending mass murderers on a philosophy forum?

Still waiting for a shred of evidence to support your position — Isaac

Which one?

This thread should be renamed to "Putin/Russia apologists group think" since that's what this whole thread is about. — Christoffer

I call them putinistas.