Ukraine is England 1940. I have seen rikyrah post that in the comments. Multiple times. So I asked if rikyrah would be wiling to expound on that a bit, and she graciously agreed. If you think it’s helpful information in a fairly bite-sized form, please share!
Ukraine is England in 1940
by rikyrah
Hello.
WaterGirl asked me to write on this, so here I am.
When I think about supporting Ukraine, it is this simple for me.
I believe Ukraine is England 1940.
England, in 1940, was the last man standing in Europe. That island, was all that stood between the world and a Evil Madman known as Adolf Hitler. He had already conquered Poland (attacked in September 1939), Denmark (April 1940), Norway (April 1940), Belgium (May 1940), the Netherlands (May 1940), Luxembourg (May 1940), and France (May 1940).
Adolph Hitler had overrun nearly all the rest of the Europe by 1940.
England was alone at the end of all of that.
The only thing now, in 2024, instead of Ukraine being at the end of a Mad Man’s intentions, they are at the beginning.
Because, if Ukraine falls, then Putin will not stop with Ukraine. There is nothing about Putin that should make anyone believe that he will stop. If victorious in Ukraine, he will continue his march in Europe.
Like FDR with Lend-Lease, the United States needs to fully fund Ukraine through January 2025. This war will continue until November 5, 2024. Putin’s Stooge- Trump, has already told him that not only would he not defend Ukraine, but, would have no interest in defending NATO. Music to Putin’s ears. It also doesn’t help that he has a sizeable chunk of the Republican Party doing his bidding, in the form of the Preacher Speaker. The way these folks betray the interest of the United States in servitude to the dictator of Russia will never not bother me.
Biden, on the other hand, has shown that he fully supports Ukraine and our allies in NATO.
Supplies and funds for Ukraine makes more sense than almost any funds we give to foreign countries. The Ukrainians are only asking for supplies to enable THEM to fight. We have weapons, and don’t have to supply American troops? Win-win.
Putin is not one to admit that he was wrong. And, he was definitely wrong about Ukraine. But, he won’t even think about a resolution to his folly until after the November election. He’s going to dig in, and do whatever he has to do in order to make it to November 2024, and hope for a Trump victory, which, of course, he is aiding through misinformation campaigns.
Nobody will convince me that Putin thought that Ukraine would fight as they have done. I believe that he thought they would fold the way Afghanistan folded once the US left. That they have not has stunned him. And, the losses that Russia has incurred, trying to pull off Putin’s Folly..have been enormous. But, his megalomania makes him unable to admit his mistake in invading Ukraine. A Biden win, accompanied by continued NATO solidarity, is the foundation in pushing Putin towards acknowledgement of defeat.
We must stop Putin. I don’t want WWIII. Cut him off at the path HERE – in Ukraine – and, hopefully, we won’t have an expansion of fighting across Europe. We need to deliver that blow to him.
Old School
Plenty to agree with here, but I’m doubtful that the invasion will stop simply because Biden wins re-election.
Baud
Yay, rikyrah! I hope you write more guest posts.
Sandia Blanca
@Baud: Yes, I have often wished rikyrah could become a front-pager! This is a great way to explain the dangers posed by the Axis of Evil Dictators.
H.E.Wolf
@Baud:
Seconded! And thank you for writing this one.
Almost Retired
Agree solidly. My best friends wife is Estonian. Her friends and family are convinced that Estonia is next if Putin prevails in Ukraine. Easier pickings than Poland and they are unconvinced that NATO would risk WWIII for the Balts. Plus a substantial Russian minority in the country for pretext. Sort of the Sudetenland, but with a seaport. They’re all terrified of a Trump victory.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
Hear, hear!
trollhattan
Timely piece, thanks!
Some reality coming out of the EU today:
They’re not wrong–Vlad and all the wannabe Vlads want to reconstruct not the Soviet Union so much as Mother Russia.
It does crack me up that these very western militarists declare their biggest threat comes from “the west.” Look in the mirror lately, guys?
Chris
Not to disagree with any of this, but here’s another analogy that’s slightly more of a reach, but only slightly: Russia is France and Ukraine is Mexico, circa 1860s.
Russia, like Napoleonic France, sees a United States that’s paralyzed by the conflict between its two halves (in this case, thankfully not a literal war, at least yet), and figures this gives it a golden opportunity to seize another country for itself.
Ukraine, like Juarista Mexico, is trying to preserve not only its own independence, but its independence under a republican form of government whose values at least loosely resemble those of the United States rather than the monarchical regime the other side is trying to impose.
Then as now, the foreign and domestic conflicts for us are very much sides of the same coin. We need to defeat the GOP at home, not just for our own sake, but so that we can help Ukraine save itself. And we need Ukraine to defeat Putin, not just for its own sake, but for the sake of everybody in the West who’s facing a domestic fascist movement supported by him. Much as us winning the Civil War was good for Mexico, and Mexico winning the Second Franco-Mexican War was good for us.
Citizen Alan
Every single person who supports MAGA in 2024 is someone who would have attended Bund rallies in 1938 and would have cried out for Lindbergh or some other America Firster to become President and embrace Hitler.
rikyrah
Thanks, everyone for your kind words.
Thanks WG for posting it.
JPL
@rikyrah: Thanks you for writing the post, and your correct.
Hob
@Old School: I don’t know how it’s possible to interpret rikyrah’s post as saying anything close to “the invasion will stop simply because Biden wins re-election.” The words “foundation” and “pushing towards” clearly indicate that it’s only a starting point.
Geminid
@rikyrah: Your mention of Afghanistan reminded me how good it was Joe Biden had pulled our troops out before Putin invaded Ukraine. Russia would used proxies to attack them.
WaterGirl
@Geminid:
Yes, they surely would have.
Eduardo
@Almost Retired: They are right to be terrified.
Estonia is the most successful country not only amongst the ones that gained independence from the Soviet Union but also amongst all the central and eastern European states that get rid of communism in 1989-1991. So Putin has a great incentive to destroy that example.
It also has less than a million and a half people, a fifth of which are Russians.
Even if Biden is president I am not sure NATO will go to full blown war with Russia only for Estonia. Now imagine if the president is the traitor.
Ksmiami
100 percent- and Mike Johnson is a goddamned traitor
MarkPainter
I would submit that Ukraine is Czechoslovakia in 1938. The madman wants a piece of it, but actually he wants all of it, and even if he gets it, he will only demand more from other countries.
The difference is that we have the precedent of Czechoslovakia to refer to, which the world did not have in 1938.
What irritates me is how endlessly Republicans used the appeasement at Munich as a cudgel against Democrats. Reagan compared Jimmy Carter’s arms reduction agreement with the USSR to Munich. Failure to go to war with Iraq would be another Munich. Failure to go to war with Iran would be another Munich.
Now, for the first time since 1938, we are actually in an international situation comparable to 1938, and the Republicans are going around saying simply, “Oh, it’s not at all comparable.”
How do Republicans manage to look in the mirror every morning? It is a mystery we will never understand.
oldster
Thank you, Water Girl!
“We must stop Putin. I don’t want WWIII. Cut him off at the path HERE – in Ukraine – and, hopefully, we won’t have an expansion of fighting across Europe.”
Exactly. Every damned Republican must be asked: do you want American boys and girls dying in Europe? If not, then give Ukraine everything they need to win this war right now. Because if Ukraine loses, then Putin will keep pushing until we will have to send our own soldiers to defend Germany and France.
Nelle
Thank you for writing this. My husband is reading From That Place and Time: A Memoir 1938-1947, by Lucy Dawidowicz, about her year in Vilna (38-39), and following from NYC of the War. Today, he is reading about 1944 and I’m struck with the stupidity of it all then. And of being tut-tutted now as an alarmist about Trump’s use of “bloodbath”. I’m sick of the normalization of Trump and his violent rhetoric. It wasn’t just Germany in the 1930s that refused to see the threat. Plenty in the US downplayed it then, just as they are doing about Putin, Trump, and Orban now.
laura
Rikyrah, your post was as refreshing as a glass of cold water on a hot summer day. Thank you for your time and effort in sharing your thoughts- and that you for linking the eclectic brotha, candidly tiff, petty lupone, myron j clifton and so many terrific til toks.
gene108
@trollhattan:
I doubt EU countries collectively or individually will do much. The countries with a large enough industrial base to make an impact in aid to Ukraine, like France and Germany, have plenty of buffer states between them and Russia.
Basically, if EU countries really wanted to go on a war footing to help Ukraine, they’d have done it by now. It’s been two years and no sense of urgency from the larger European economies.
zhena gogolia
Thank you, rikyrah. I always enjoy your comments and posts.
WaterGirl
@Nelle: Did you get my note about the WWII article?
gene108
@Geminid:
I bet the Houthis in Yemen are getting support from Russia to attack Red Sea shipping.
brendancalling
I was just over at Eschaton, and had to use his most recent post on Ukraine as my personal toilet. And when I dropped by here right after, it was an oasis of sanity, informed comment, and reality.
May I add that while I can be an ornery, crotchety asshole sometimes, I am SO glad sane lefties like the commenters and FPers at BJ exist. No lie. I am regularly disappointed by some of my fellow travelers from the OG bloggers.
Thanks for the palate cleanser. I want more people to read this post.
Old School
@Hob:
I was looking at this line:
Perhaps I misinterpreted.
Geminid
@oldster: Some Republicans would answer that no Americans would die if we simply pulled out of Nato. That’s the goal of the Isolationists and they are gaining power. I think George Bush’s stupid and destructive Iraq war knocked the props out from under the Party’s Internationalist wing that had called the shots from Dwight Eisenhower to George Bush. Trump’s ascendancy was due in part to Bush discediting the party establishment. That was one of many follow-on effects of the war.
Chetan Murthy
@Old School: I interpreted that line as saying “Putin will do whatever is necessary to continue the war until 5 Nov 2024, b/c his last and best hope is that TIFG is reinstalled: he will kill whomever needs to be killed, destroy whatever needs to be destroyed, to keep fighting until at least that date.”
Paul in KY
@Chris: Interesting analogy. Do think Putin’s Russia is stronger than ‘Ersatz Napoleonic’ France and also Ukraine is much physically closer than Mexico was.
Thus making it even more important that we help Ukraine win this war!!
Old School
@Chetan Murthy: And my assumption is that it will continue past that date regardless of the election result.
rikyrah
@oldster:
Yes. The best thing about Ukraine is that they’re doing their own fighting. We don’t have to risk American troops in this….
yet….
Give them the weapons so that they can fight
Chief Oshkosh
@trollhattan: Exactly. Sure, it’s important that they not depend entirely on the US for their protection, but arguably they themselves have shown to be much, much more fickle in protecting Ukraine, and by extension, their own interests, than the US overall has been since…checks calendar…1918.
Chief Oshkosh
@Geminid: That is an interesting perspective. I’m warming to it.
WaterGirl
@gene108: I was thinking Russia and China.
rikyrah
@Old School:
For me, I realized, as I read Adam’s posts, and of the losses that Russians were getting…
I was like.
” When is Putin going to catch a clue? When will he stop and think about what he’s doing to his own countrymen?”
And, then I realized that he doesn’t really care about his countrymen, but, that, the possibility of a change in Ukraine policy can’t happen, because he’s willing to throw as many of his fellow Russians to be ground up and killed on the chance that Dolt45 can get back in there, and he can dry up the Ukraine funding and hurt NATO. He literally doesn’t care how many people die between now and November 5th. Because, he’s betting on the Orange Menace and his delusions of Russian expansion.
Paul in KY
@Old School: The war to fuck up TFG’s ambitions!
TBone
I read that Bernie went over FDR speeches with President Biden the day before his SOTU knock-it-out-of-the-park performance, and I believe our Dems see these parallels very clearly. Age and wisdom. I spent a lot of the TCM 31 Days of Oscar watching WWII war movies from that era, (all Oscar nominated or winners) and learned a hell of a lot. I already had a solid understanding of the real history from the zillion books Dad left all over the house, but the propaganda and sometimes factual stories presented opened a whole new aspect in my field of vision. Even the fictional accounts had wisdom. Kudos to you, Rikyrah!
Cacti
I’d rate Ukraine as having a more just cause than Britain in 1940, given the latter’s global pillage empire and all.
Hoodie
I’m not sure that’s entirely true, and it might discount Putin’s long term goals. He wasn’t invading Ukraine because he thought it would be easy. Sure, that was a desirable possibility, but it’s quite possible that it didn’t surprise him when the invasion bogged down. After all, he attacked a huge country with a relatively small force. He may have done that simply because that’s what he could get away with domestically at the time.
His overarching goal seems to be resurrection of a Russian empire from what he probably views as a decadent state that doesn’t live up to what he views as his destiny. One of the main purposes of the invasion may have been to resurrect in the minds of the Russian people that they have some sort of destiny to again be an empire. Think of it as the Russian version of the Project for a New American Century. That project was going to proceed irrespective of whether there was a quick victory in Ukraine or a prolonged war.
glc
@Old School: I would take the intent here as more or less the same as that given more explicitly further on.
Nelle
@WaterGirl: No, never saw it. Email kind of messed up while I was out of the country (about three weeks).
Chetan Murthy
@Old School: I think that’s not clear. Yes, he won’t just stop fighting on that date if Biden wins. But OTOH, I can see him suing for peace, and on harsh terms (for him) in that timeline, b/c he’ll know that things can only get worse for him. The contrary outcome — that he fights on indefinitely — seems less likely, only because he’d know that he can only lose and lose more and more of his ill-gotten gains.
And more importantly for him, if he grinds up all his troops in Ukraine, he’s going to have precious little left to squash any internal insurrections. And that’s going to become a concern if he keeps this up for another year-or-two with no gains to show for it, and even losses.
But I could be wrong. I’m just speculatin’ on a hypothesis.
Soprano2
@brendancalling: Was it the one about Tom Friedman, or the one about Lindsey Graham’s idiocy? Atrios seems to be pretty good on Ukraine, perhaps his commenters aren’t? I never read the comments there.
Geminid
@gene108: The Houthis get all the material support they need from Iran. Putin no doubt is cheering them on, but it’s Iranian weapons that are being fired at shipping.
Aside from making trouble for the West, Iran is getting a windfall of data about their weapons and about the defensive capabilities the US and our allies deploy.
The Shahed attack drones Russia is using against Ukraine were first tested in 2019 when a salvo of 40 Shaheds attacked two Saudi oil processing facilities. The drones were launched from Houthi controlled land but it was probably Iran that launched them. They have since had time to train Houthis to do the job. Some of the missiles are more advanced so Iranian technicians are probably involved in the launches.
Old School
@rikyrah:
Agreed. I don’t think Putin cares how many people die after November 5th either.
RaflW
Interesting that you mention Afghanistan, as the Soviet Union spent 10 difficult years there ’79-’89.
Mike E
I was thinking lately how World War I was more analogous to what’s going on today but what’s certain is how history rhymes more with the (various moments in the) past than just merely repeating it.
RaflW
@Eduardo: With Sweden officially acceding to NATO on March 7 of this year, I’d think they’d very much want to come to Estonia’s aid in the case of Putin making a move there. Finland, too.
I’m not familiar enough with the mechanics of NATO to know if individual nations can or would act if a member-state is invaded, or do all have to agree?
TBone
@TBone: such as and also too:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Au_revoir_les_enfants
Anoniminous
Something else to throw in the pot. A week ago Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said “Poland will not be forced to enter the war at this time“. Poles hate Russia. I believe they will fight to keep it away from their border if it ever looks like Ukraine will be conquered.
[emphasis added]
brendancalling
@Soprano2: Graham, but the Friedman one was pretty stupid as well.
I don’t think he’s good on Ukraine at all. My opinion is he says as little as possible about it because he’s quietly a tankie.
Ms. Deranged in AZ
I agree in general. I think that Putin would invade into all the former satellite states of the USSR, but not invade all of Europe. To be honest, however, this is a distinction without a difference to most of us.
Chetan Murthy
@Ms. Deranged in AZ:
Given that that includes all of the former East Germany, it’d be pretty catastrophic. And I agree with you on his intentions.
oldster
@rikyrah:
“he doesn’t really care about his countrymen … because he’s willing to throw as many of his fellow Russians to be ground up and killed….”
You’re right about that, but it’s actually a bit worse:
He’s not killing what he would consider “real” Russians. He’s killing non-ethnic members of the Russian Empire. He’s sending in people from all of the outlying parts of the Empire, in order not to recruit from the ethnic heartland of Muscovy. If the sons and daughters of Moscow start getting killed in Ukraine, then there will be complaints and unrest. But as long as it is Chechens, Kazakhis, people from the steppes, — and let’s not forget a good helping of convicted murderers and rapists, let out of prison on amnesty — then the residents of Moscow will never complain or protest.
It’s part of the tragedy of this war: Putin is sending to their deaths people he considers sub-humans anyhow. Zelensky must send his own fellow-citizens to the front, and look their families in the eye when they don’t come back.
Mike E
@Chetan Murthy: You forgot Poland!
rikyrah
@Chetan Murthy:
I mean, they’re killing the Russian Army. They are at the point where they are emptying prisons in order to get soldiers.
They are running through their war machinery.
We have phucked up their Rubles.
He can only throw out so many oligarchs out of windows before one of them decides they’ve had enough.
Old School
Traveller
Note to all of ourselves:
Call our congressional representative to make sure that they have signed the discharge petition for Aid to Ukraine. (Discharge Petition Number 9).
For example, it seems odd to me that Katie Porter of Orange County, California, has not signed. She is not my Congressperson but I still intend to call her office tomorrow as well as Adam Schiff’s and Judy Chu’s office.
We should all make this extra effort because apparently the open window for the discharge petition is only this Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, this week.
We should all make the maximum effort to see that the discharge petition is signed to bring the vote to the floor of the full house, where it will undoubtedly pass if it simply is given an honest & open vote.
For easier access to your congress person, see also here.
https://twitter.com/_Alexander_R__/status/1769910673306276305/photo/1
You will feel better about yourself after you make this call. Please do it.
Best Wishes, Traveller
Soprano2
@brendancalling: You may be right, most of his posts are short. He seems to spend a lot of time blaming Biden and his foreign policy people for what’s happening in Gaza, that if only he had different people there things would be different. I can’t get over the idea so many people have that Biden can control what Israel does. I think even if we cut off every dollar of aid to them tomorrow Bibi would still do what he wants to.
Soprano2
@Old School: Wow, that’s a bad sign IMHO. Immigration is the purview of the federal government, if the Clerical 6 allow the states to start passing their own immigration laws we’ll have chaos.
AlaskaReader
@brendancalling: Here is what he has said:
Your inference has no merit.
TBone
Not sure how much people here know about the Stasi. I saw jack-booted soldiers with automatic long guns at border crossings in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria up close and personal (before the Wall came down). Putin is “former” Stasi. That fact will send chills down anyone’s spine who is paying attention. Stasi is pure evil given human form.
TBone
@Old School: JFC
Chetan Murthy
@Mike E: I was picking the westernmost extent of the USSR’s domains. Maybe I should have also mentioned Austria (I thought about it).
Paul in KY
@TBone: FDR was great at calling out Repubs and doing it in a way that laid bare their perfidy.
Paul in KY
@Hoodie: IMO, he was/is trying to destroy Ukraine as an example of a working, liberal, non-kleptocracy state.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@TBone: [ the Stasi ] probably you have seen the Lives of Others
TBone
@TBone: see the section titled “Relationship with KGB (“Soviet Intelligence”) for a photo of Putin’s Stasi ID.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi
Pooty is still Stasi and his minions wreak havoc worldwide.
TBone
@Paul in KY: 👍
Chris
@Paul in KY:
The fact that he’s obsessed with selling the notion that Russians and Ukrainians are the same people actually makes this more urgent for him. It’s one thing for the French or the English to be running a liberal non-kleptocracy state on the other side of the continent; you can dismiss that as “yeah, fine, maybe that’s their shtick, but they’re Not Like Us, what’s good for them is not good for we, the proud, badass, Russian people!” But if the Ukrainians are doing the same thing, and you’ve just spent the last decade telling us that Ukrainians are Russians… well… crap.
TBone
@Mr. Bemused Senior: not yet! Thanks for sharing, it’s now on my list. Google TV will find it for me.
Gin & Tonic
Thank you for this post, rikyrah.
Bex
@Soprano2: I haven’t read Axios in long time, but I agree (just from a quick look) that he doesn’t sound anti-Ukraine. He’s talking about Graham telling them to draft more people, which is none of Graham’s business. Wasn’t he just in Ukraine a few months ago? Why is he taking another junket…err trip so soon? I did read the comments and they were pretty good with the exception of “stark”, who is Mr. Negative. Best viewing was the YouTube of Seth Meyers’s impressions of Graham and his “grandmother”, meemaw.
gene108
@MarkPainter:
I’ve been thinking about Republican foreign policy this century, and I’ve concluded they view any negotiation with a less powerful nation as undesirable. First thing Republican administrations have done is reject any agreement a preceding Democratic administration agreed to.
Bush & Co. got out of the ABM treaty to work on missile defense, and the Agreed Framework with North Korea to have them halt their nuclear clear weapons program.
Every Republican in 2015 and 2016 very loudly proclaimed they would abandon the Iran nuclear deal on day one as President, which Trump did.
The entire posture of Republican foreign policy has been to want use force, either economic or military, to force concessions before even trying to negotiate.
Trump is just more extreme version of every other Republicans’ take on foreign policy.
Chris
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
The Stasi are popular bad guys if you like Cold War era films and TV shows (and the occasional post Cold War one, like Die Hard With A Vengeance). East Germany was a beloved source of villains, because you could take all the stereotypes associated with the Nazis (because Germans) and dump them onto a contemporary, communist state.
But Putin wasn’t technically one of them? Stasi was part of the East German government. Putin was a KGB thick assigned to the country by the Soviet government. Same basic principle, though.
RaflW
@Old School: Total f*king Calvinball. There are no ‘originalists’ or ‘textualist’ on the 6 member Roberts conserva-court.
I respect the various dissents that Justice Sotomayor has written or signed onto. But her little civility parade with Amy Conjob Barrett was a really bad moment.
The court issues a lot of f*cking illegitimate decisions. Through no fault of Ms. S. It sucks that she’s having to contend with it. But apologetics gets us less than nothing.
Chetan Murthy
@Bex: Denys Davydov took Senator Fainting Couch apart last night. What Ukraine needs is more weapons, not more soldiers. Without weapons, more soldiers means more dead Ukrainians, and Ukraine needs younger men to repopulate the nation, so they’re going to keep them out of combat.
Graham is such a piece of shit.
trollhattan
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
Great movie, although I was expecting more laughs.
[narrator: he was not expecting laughs.]
TBF Germans had lots of experience running a surveillance state.
gene108
@rikyrah:
If killing the Russian Army actually made a difference as to whether Russia loses a war to another European nation, than Napoleon and Hitler would’ve won their wars against Russia.
Russia has enough people and natural resources to outlast any other European country in a war.
Gin & Tonic
@Chris: russia has been saying Ukrainians are russians for centuries.
Eduardo
@RaflW: Article V will be invoked and yes, it allows for both individual country and collective actions. It does not force anyone to send troops.
Everyone will agree on defending Estonia, but how much? Not clear to me.
To Finland and Sweden I would add Poland as the most likely to intervene, but I don’t think there are guarantees.
If things in Ukraine deteriorate, these countries and others may deploy troops in Ukraine to prevent Russia to take Kyiv, Odessa, Lviv.
But again, the Estonians are right to be very worried.
AlaskaReader
@Soprano2: Here is what he’s said:
Short, yes, but pretty clearly not supporting any inference he’s a tankie.
zhena gogolia
@Chris: He was KGB, not Stasi. In other words, worse.
brendancalling
@AlaskaReader: I’ve known that guy personally IRL for about 20 years. I know how to make inferences from his blog. I don’t need you help, thanks very much.
AlaskaReader
@zhena gogolia: Hmmm…
Seems likely he was perhaps both.
Ruckus
rikyrah, this is very, very good.
I am not a person of war. I served during a war. I am a person against war. BUT. War is a human experience and people that do not give two shits about anyone or anything but their power (vlad!) will create war to gain what they want. They don’t give two shits about the lives lost, only about the power and land won.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
“Don’t you dare blackmail me with the Supreme Court, Gaza, Reproductive Choice, Contraception, Drug Prices, Multinational Accountability for Malicious International Actors, Multinational Solutions to Economic and Environmental Problems, Improvements in Tax Administration for Wealthy Cheats, Positive Multinational Relationships or Progress on Student Loan Relief! My breathless and seriously considered vote is MINE, not for sale and must be earned by placating what I want in a President!”
AlaskaReader
@brendancalling: When he clearly and publicly states his preferences in ways that directly contradict your unsupported inference, …’help’ is what you’ll get.
zhena gogolia
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: 😂
zhena gogolia
@AlaskaReader: His primary identification was and still is gbeshnik.
Emily B.
@Traveller: Thanks for the suggestion! Just called my rep’s office. (Donald Payne Jr.) He’s on board.
RaflW
@Eduardo: Thanks. I’d imagine it’d be a hard calculation for a country like Sweden. Their standing army is quite small. Years ago I talked with a couple cousins about their mandatory service, and it sounded like it was short (6 months?) and for those not wanting to be career military, not all that in depth.
So calling up reserves, I suspect, would involve fairly long trainings. I wonder what sort of contingencies are being planned. Also, just found this 3/11/24 accession speech from Sweden’s center-right PM Kristersson, which I’ll partially quote (italics added by me):
I hope to visit my cousins in late summer or early fall. I’ll be very curious how they view all this (they are mostly center/near-left and reasonably progressive).
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
I think even if we cut off every dollar of aid to them tomorrow Bibi would still do what he wants to.
I agree.
But. His is a separate country, and has a history of going it’s own way. But then that could be said about this country as well.
It’s a small world, all things considered. We have a lot of international trade of all levels of stuff. Someone benefits from that, likely at least a few people. But then a lot of things that we – or anyone might purchase in most countries can benefit others, often in ways that the vast majority of people might never actually know. Vehicles are made in many countries and often purchased in another country. Or plants are owned by a foreign entity but many of the workers are locals that benefit. There are local, state wide, national wide and world wide benefits to not being douchebags and existing in the world, being a part of it, rather than only in one’s country. First, unless someone somewhere is being a douchebag and thinking that he needs to screw over/kill others for some asinine benefit – think current Ukraine, rather than just fixing his own country, in which there is a lot more to gain than trying to destroy/steal/take over Ukraine.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Traveller: I just called Jared Hoffman’s DC office and while they are not allowed to discuss policy over the phone (!), the young man I talked to did allow that they were getting other calls about the discharge petition. The first thing he did was vet me by finding me in his database of district voters (makes sense). So I don’t know if Hoffman has signed the petition or not, but I have urged him to if he hasn’t
ETA: Actually, I called twice. The first young man didn’t seem like he really knew what he was doing, except to refer me to the Congressman’s website, and after searching the website I called back to say I couldn’t find any recent info about Ukraine. The young man who took the second call was the one who vetted me and seemed to know his job.
Uncle Cosmo
Vova would have to think long and hard about invading Estonia if the Swedes and Finns made it clear they’d come to Estonia’s aid.
Not a lot of good choices for Pootie-Poot.
Shalimar
@MarkPainter: Czechoslovakia is the example that first comes to my mind too, but I think Rikyrah makes an excellent point. Czechoslovakia would be looking from a world/European point of view, and Americans don’t really do that. England in 1940 works really well for the situation the USA specifically is in.
Chief Oshkosh
@Traveller: Thanks for the reminder. I called local and DC offices and sent message via online form.
TBone
@Chris: did you see my comment #68? This is not just a matter of “popular bad guys” and I suggest you familiarize yourself with the various techniques and torture used by Stasi (and yes, Putin IS Stasi) before dismissing the seriousness of this association (KGB & Stasi historically intertwined). Why were Stasi placed there, and who were they there to “police”?
Anyway
@AlaskaReader:
Can you post a link?
TBone
@zhena gogolia: there is a photo of Putin’s Stasi ID at the link I posted at #68.
Ruckus
@RaflW:
Look at the population and size of country and compare it to the US. We have a history of being formed by a war, and in relative terms, not all that long ago. How does that compare to Sweden? Or many other countries as well. The world does not revolve around our flag pole. We are a member of the world and we have to remember to respect (something that vlad seems to completely misunderstand – or ignore) others, in the same way we need to respect our own citizens.
HeartlandLiberal
Well said, rikyrah.
You have deep grasp of history and current events.
Trump will sell us out and NATO out to Putin and Russia.
Unless we supply arms, and plenty of them, to Ukraine.
Slava Ukraini.
Слава Україні!
zhena gogolia
@TBone: I know. I don’t see why Stasi should take precedence over his KGB service, which is his primary identity.
TBone
@zhena gogolia: it informs his views, connections, and techniques. There is a section at the link I posted explaining the association. Secret police. Like in Orwell’s Animal Farm. But real life for decades. Use of civilians on the regular, like Vichy France. I’m not suggesting it takes “precedence” over his KGB work. I’m saying it was a formative part of that work.
For example:
Old School
@Anyway:
This seems to be the source.
Dangerman
Tax cuts. Deregulation. Cleeks Law.
To them, better than hookers and blow; I wish they would blow a head gasket
ETA: Earlier, I called Trump Evil; his followers are so blinded by the Right, it’s sad (like a deuce? Exactly).
Eduardo
@Uncle Cosmo: Yes, Sweden and Finland together can defeat Russia. You add Poland to the mix and the Russians are beyond f___ed.
The question is whether at the Zero Hour they will put everything on the line to rescate Tiny Estonia. I haven’t the slightest idea. And consider that a future attack in Estonia is contingent on the West failing big time in Ukraine. That’s one more reason why it is so important to defeat Putin in Ukraine.
Attempted Chemistry
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: But other than Reproductive Choice, Contraception, Drug Prices, Multinational Accountability for Malicious International Actors, Multinational Solutions to Economic and Environmental Problems, Improvements in Tax Administration for Wealthy Cheats, Positive Multinational Relationships or Progress on Student Loan Relief, what have the Democrats ever done for us?
Denali5
The current love affair between Orban and TIFG will not stop Putin from invading Hungary if Ukraine falls. Hungarians should realize this potentiality.
Bupalos
I love the spirit of this post. I think if we’re doing WWII analogies Ukraine probably gets to play Poland. Partly because Poland was the first move and also because I’d put the Baltics (which have significant military industries and resources) in the role of Czechoslovakia. The ceding of Czechoslovakia and it’s industrial base was what meant Hitler would absolutely not be quickly stopped and that millions were guaranteed to die.
But this is not WWII. WWII was primarily about German colonization of Ukraine and destruction of the USSR. The first of which Hitler saw as the breadbasket that would feed German racial domination, and the second of which he rather insanely saw as a fundamentally Jewish state that had to be destroyed in order to destroy law and brotherhood and clear the path for eternal race war. Because clearly when one thinks of law, brotherhood, and Jewish power, one thinks first and foremost of the Stalinist USSR.
Putin has developed a similarly insane mythological nationalism over time, as power and isolation has devoured the more rational parts of his clever mobster’s brain. It’s similarly based on resentment and victimhood and recovery of lost glory. His aims do now seem to require a complete teardown of the international order, and this seems to require a clash with and destruction of NATO and the United States, much as Hitler was convinced he had to destroy the USSR. All so that Russia can once again (?!!) shine forth as very first among nations in a world of raw power struggle that drops all this “international law” mumbo jumbo. So yeah, we’re very likely looking at WWIII and I definitely think we should look to the tragic mistakes of WWII and figure out how to avoid them.
Hob
@Old School: Well, not to speak for rikyrah, but in context it looks to me like the intended meaning there is that it’ll continue at least till November – that Putin has no incentive to even consider giving up as long as he can still anticipate Trump getting back into office, so we shouldn’t expect him to listen to anyone or make any change in his strategy until then, and our focus till then should be on continuing to fund Ukraine. I think the rest of the piece makes that pretty clear.
Jay
@Eduardo:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Enhanced_Forward_Presence
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Attempted Chemistry:
“Biden hasn’t even tried to really use his presidency to make these things happen fully! He wants the Grand Bargain and all these bad things to happen!”
TBone
@Bupalos: 👍
Bupalos
@Denali5: I think if Ukraine were to fall Hungary would already be essentially a client state. I really don’t think Hungary is on the menu here, it would almost certainly be one of the Baltics, and the point would simply be to challenge article 5, and the hope would be to effectively destroy NATO not by physical conquest but by proving it is not willing to back up the promise with actual bodies.
WeimarGerman
@rikyrah: Thank you for your post.
I want to add a different bit of information to the conversation. My son is an officer in the US Army stationed in Germany. For the last few months he and his unit have been training Ukrainian troops. Those Ukrainian units receive tactical and equipment training with the US troops, then rotate to other NATO countries to pick up new equipment before rotating back to the front lines.
Our sons and daughters and loved ones are putting themselves at heightened risk today. They are foregoing leave to deliver this training. More than usual live fire drills and other training implies more accidents, especially with less well-trained partner forces.
When we withhold funding from the Ukrainians, all this effort and risk is going to waste. I don’t know how this is effecting retention rates, but it doesn’t help morale to see the home front in such a mess.
Traveller
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): I would like to thank you, Emily B and the Chief for reaching out as you have. Kudos to you and you’ve earned some good Karma coming your way…Good people get good things one way or another.
I am a little embarrassed being as out front on this as I am….sigh…I can only pray that the discharge petition avenue to solve this problem works. I am posting this around most everywhere and good people are taking the moment of time necessary to hopefully effect change. Thank you again! Best Wishes, Traveller
Bupalos
@Hob: I feel like folks should be very clear on this:
Putin is NEVER going to give up. It’s not even a remote possibility. Not only will he not give up on Ukraine, he will not give up on his war with the West generally. And he’s fairly explicit that this is a war against the West and is not about Ukrainian territory. He’s already taken Russia on a militarized totalitarian turn and his own personal survival depends on it continuing in that direction.
TBone
@Bupalos: 1,000% correct, except I believe he wants the territory as well.
The ties with Traitor Rump and the rethug cult are ass-blistering. Clear cut traitor motherfuckers.
Uncle Cosmo
IMO the Russo-Ukraine War is one of those conflicts that “rhymes” with the Western front in the Great War: The Russians, like the Reichsheer, attempted a quick strike to knock Ukraine (France) out of the war before their allies could intervene. The Russian battle plan, like the Germans’ Schlieffen Plan, was fatally flawed from the outset due to logistical shortcomings (slowness of horsedrawn armies in WW1, fuel and food breakdowns en route to Kyiv owing to Russian kleptocracy). Plan B for the Kaiser was to force France to defend its great fortress of Verdun and to “bleed the French Army white” with incessant artillery barrages – analogous to nightly Russian artillery and missile strikes against the civilian population. That didn’t work either.
After > 3 years of stalemate, both sides developed new tactics to break the impasse (storm-troopers for the Germans, tanks and combined-arms for the Allies), In spring 1918 the Germans came within a whisker of breaking the Allied lines, but with the arrival of US troops the front was stabilized, the Allies counterattacked and broke the Reichsheer, relentlessly chasing the Germans back toward Germany, and just before the border was crossed an armistice was declared (11 Nov 1918).
Now ask yourself: Suppose Ukraine wins, in a turn of events as drastic as those of 1918, with Russian units skedaddling across the border back into Mother Russia. What would need to happen in order to secure a lasting peace?
IMO you could come up with just about every conceivable mechanism to ensure that the Germans – uh, I mean the Russians – could never again threaten the peace of Europe. And you would discover that (to a great extent) each and every one of those mechanisms was tried after 11 Nov 1918, and each and every one failed. The ink wasn’t even dry on the last of the postwar peace treaties (Lausanne, 1923) before the rise of autocratic despotisms across Eurasia, wars among successor state, and two decades later to a vastly more sanguinary rematch, a Great War 2.0 we call World War II.
This is something that keeps me up at night, less in terror than dismay: Analogous to all the intractable problems that kept the Great War from living up to its billing as “the war to end wars” – many with roots in ethnic animosity, herrenvolk nationalism, and misguided plans for “self-determination” when multiple groups can claim ownership of the same lands – I see “slant rhymes” of virulent nationalism, “stab-in-the-back” fantasies (Dolchstosslegende), and simmering resentments leading to revanche. And I cannot for the life of me see how that can be avoided. Next time with nukes on both sides. =8^O
frosty
@Traveller: Just called Smucker (R) who’s voted for every previous bill supporting Ukraine. I’d love if he would be one of the ones to cross the aisle and buck TFG.
zhena gogolia
@TBone: Okay, I give up. They’re all assholes.
trollhattan
@frosty: Good job.
Somebody should ask Mike Johnson if he’s entered a covenant marriage with Putin. Could explain a couple things.
For once, can’t Zombie Reagan make himself useful and haunt these pro-Rooskie Republicans? C’mon man, you’re the party of Joe McCarthy.
Bupalos
@Uncle Cosmo: Let me suggest that the population of Russia is no where near as homogenous nor as nationalist nor as destabilized as WWI-and-post-WWI Germany. And also that the post WWI international efforts focussed on physical prevention and punishment, which obviously backfired.
When Russia loses in Ukraine, the Putin regime will almost certainly fall, and we will have opportunities to bring Russia back into the civilized world.
We will also have a great chance to fuck up like we did in the 1990’s.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Nominated!
Bupalos
@frosty: I’m about to go cast a primary ballot for David Joyce (R) who is similar on Ukraine and up against MAGA heads in the primary. I’m taking an R ballot, and also going to vote for known psycho MAGA Bernie Merano to hopefully boost Sherrod Brown’s chances.
JML
@Bupalos: it’s a good point, but there is a possibility that Putin will find a reason to declare victory and walk off the field if Biden is re-elected and the aid to Ukraine keeps flowing as it should. But gauging that is incredibly difficult when dealing with a megalomaniac who isn’t stupid.
There’s a part of me that wonders if the only realistic endgame is when some of the oligarchs backing the Putin regime decide the cost of doing business is too high and have him thrown out a very high window.
but I 100% believe that Putin will never stop at just Ukraine. the Baltics will be next for sure and it’s hard to see a point where this monster would ever be finished. He dreams of empire, and thinks he’s entitled to one. It shouldn’t be a surprise: he’s been the de facto Tsar for a long time now.
Citizen Alan
@oldster: The problem is that the Republicans don’t expect US soldiers to ever been fighting Putin in Europe because their plan is to surrender to him preemptively. Sort of like how no Americans would have ever died at Normandy if only the GOP had prevented FDR from using Lend-Lease and ensured that Britain would have fallen.
sab
@Bupalos: Good for you re Joyce. Maybe if a few non-MGAs survive primaries the others will find their spines.
I hope Moreno doesn’t become the next JD Vance.
pabadger
@Cacti: Every country has a right to defend itself and while I am not defending it, the UKs global pillage empire was important in the fight against global fascism. And yes, the Bengal famine was horrible and should have been alleviated. That does not mean what the UK empire did in the war was not an overall good.
Citizen Alan
@Old School: Of topic, but am I the only one to find it ominous that Election Day this year is also Guy Fawkes Day?
ColoradoGuy
With the deaths of 400,000 on the day the Orange Monster left the White House, and deaths of 500,000 Iraqis thanks to GWB’s War of Choice and grossly incompetent Occupation, the Repubs have already crossed the Rubicon.
They are quite comfortable with the mass death of foreigners and Americans. That’s something they share with Putin … lives don’t matter. At all. Not the lives of foreigners with a different religion. Not the lives of Americans living in the Blue cities. Not even the lives of members of their own political cult. They just don’t care; if their philosophy has a core belief, that’s it. The cult is nihilist from top to bottom.
greenergood
I’m a free-lance copy-editor, and have just finished working on a book about Prejudice and Genocide, over the past 2000 years – it was pretty horrifying and fascinating simultaneously. But the one element I was just amazed with, after readng the chapter on the Holocaust, was that if we – i.e., the UK, US, French, etc., had not ‘won’ the war, then there would be no Jews in Europe, or the UK, or even the US – and the even more horifying situation is that there are now plenty Americans that think that’s not a bad thing to think about … meanwhile, Jews who are not stupid, and are observant and kind, are totally pissed off at Mr Netanyahu’s desperate ploys to save his arse … his country can get to hell, as long as he’s rescued from jail – what a loser …
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Soprano2:
I never read the comments there.
That is smart. Not that Atrios is anything other than a glib, one-trick pony on any given issue. But you talk about certain issues and the fauxgressiveness of his commentariat (just like at LGM) comes out in force.
Jay
@JML:
Putin’s not going to “walk off the field”.
The least he will do is try to make it a Frozen Conflict, thus keeping Ukraine out of NATO.
He will keep throwing meat cubes at the Ukrainians. The ruZZian “Army” has been for over a year “recruiting” meat cubes abroad. Nepalese, Indians, various Africans, Cubans, etc.
Recruiters bring them in, offering high paying jobs in factories, security jobs, transportation and warehouse jobs, pay for their transport. OMON sweeps them up, claims they are there illegally, give them the choice of 15 years in a ruZZian Gulag, or sign a ruZZian contract, to act a porters and repair techs for the ruZZian Army.
Of course, the contract is not to be logistics, it’s to be meat cubes. They get two weeks of “fun” training, not bad by ruzzian standards, food, shelter, a non serious regime, then are loaded on busses, sent to the front line, are beaten, abused and sent into meat cube assaults.
So far, ruZZia has “recruited” at least 12,000.
If, and I say if, (Allied wonderwaffen are not quite the solution, and there is too few of them), Ukraine manages to push Putin and the ruZZian’s back to their 2022 “start lines”, Putin will start to negotiate “cease fires” MOU’s, etc, that won’t be worth the paper they are written on. Unfortunately, many in the West, (looking at you, Pope), will try to embrace it as “Peace In Our Time”. It won’t be.
The solution is for Ukraine to kick the ruZZian’s out of all of Ukraine, tit for tat any ruZZian provocations on the border, or escalate, (declare a one sided DMZ and enforce it, 200 km inland into ruZZia from the Ukrainian border), have the West amp up sanctions and sanction enforcement, force ruZZia to release the tens of thousands of kidnapped Ukrainian men, women and children, release the thousands of Ukrainian and Tartar political prisoners, release every single Ukrainian POW. And I mean force, none of this horse trading shit.
Prosecute and try, (in absentia if needed), every single war crime and sanction those that remain in ruZZia so that for the rest of their lives, they have to remain in ruZZia, and I am including the Teachers doing brainwashing and cultural genocide, AG companies stealing grain, Factories using forced or coerced Ukrainian labour, Real Estate agents selling Mariupol apartments and Crimean dacha’s.
No Amnesty, no Asylum.
Then just let ruZZia rot.
If ruZZia wants to rejoin the “world”, they need to take their own internal “active measures”. They can figure it out on their own.
Bupalos
@rikyrah: Putin doesn’t much care what happens to his countrymen in the sense of how many of them die. In another sense, he cares a great deal what happens to them, but in perhaps an even worse way for long term international peace. He is using the Ukraine war, including its massive death toll, as a means of converting the great mass of apolitical, apathetic Russians into something more active and actively opposed to “the West,” which is increasingly cast as the great predator that impoverishes them and wants to gobble up their land and resources while laughing at them.
The jury is out on how successful this will be, but this, and military training, and the idea of a giant conflict with the west is absolutely becoming part of basic pedagogy.
TBone
@Jay: good rant. I feel that.
Bupalos
I think we should probably understand from the aftermath of WWI leading to WWII that this would be stabbing ourselves in the eyeball to spite Russia’s face.
There can be no dealing with the Putin regime obviously. However the West must give Russia options and a place to go other than hell. Because they will drag Ukraine (and us) with them. Many many Russians want to join the West and the great mass of Russians really doesn’t care either way, they just want “normal” lives and expanding opportunities like everyone else. They have a traumatizing history that (at least in the 90’s) does have something to do with our own failures. We have responsibility here, first and foremost to our own security and world peace.
Omnes Omnibus
@TBone: He was a KGB officer seconded to the Stasi. If you want to say he was an East Bloc secret policeman, fine. But there reason people are pushing back at you is that Putin was never anything but a Russian. I am pretty sure he never had any loyalty to or patriotic feelings for the DDR. He is a Russian spook.
Comrade Misfit
Republicans are backing Putin in the same way that they implicitly backed Hitler in 1940, by trying to do everything possible to not aid Great Britain.
So, at least they are consistent. They stood for fascism and against democracies in 1940 and they are doing it again today.
But what the hell, elements of the Right were trying to pull off a coup in the 1930s and they tried again in 2021. They really do hate freedom and democracy.
TBone
@Omnes Omnibus: who said he was German? Certainly not me. I’m trying to get people to understand what the Stasi & KGB did (read the history), I’m not psychoanalyzing Pooty! He’s using methods learned there.
Jay
@Bupalos:
You can’t help those who won’t help themselves. ruZZian’s have an ancient history of not helping themselves, (other than to loot, rape and murder), and instead, blaming everything “wrong” on the West.
Did you know that there are lots of books, in ruZZian on how to set up a functioning democracy, a functioning economy, a just justice system, etc.
Nobody reads them.
I really don’t want ruZZian War Criminals seeking asylum in Canada like Nazi’s did after WWII
I don’t want criminal and war criminal “Corporations” like Gasprom, (who have their own Merc units fighting in Ukraine), to ever be able to enter Western markets or get “Western aid”, (technology, funds, advice).
I don’t want some “computer programmer”, who targeted Ukrainian Hospitals, Parks, Playgrounds, Apartments, Houses, Schools to ever be able to be hired in the West on a “visa”.
It’s up to ruZZia to clean house, not us. We have more than enough house cleaning to do.
Unless ruZZia cleans house on it’s own, any “rapproachment” with ruZZia will just further corrupt the West.
GrOPper Party, cough, cough.
WaterGirl
@WeimarGerman: You shared an important perspective, thank you.
Uncle Cosmo
@Bupalos: Thanx 4 engaging!
Let me suggest that the actual Russians (~78% of the population) are in fact homogeneous and nationalist**,most of them living in the Western Russian Plain well short of the Urals. This seems important because the much more sparsely populated regions to the east and south are the locations of the extractive resources that are the basis of the Russian Federation’s economy. In the event of a Ukrainian victory, I could see the non-Russian regions breaking away from the core and either squabbling amongst themselves or being reattached to Moskva in Greater Russian Civil War 2.0.
** Somewhere I have a slim volume titled Political Jokes of Leningrad (ca.1980) which includes this paraphrased definition of “Soviet internationalism”: When a Russian, Ukrainian, Estonian, Lithuanian, and Armenian embrace each other in socialist fraternity, and go off to beat the crap out of an Azerbaijani.
What were they spozeta apply, moral suasion? Even after carving away Posen and the Polish Corridor, Germany still had the greatest population, the largest army and the most puissant economy on the Continent – and the former Austrian, Russian and Ottoman Empires were shattered into smaller states.
Thanks to one Erich Ludendorff – who forced a civilian government to take responsibility for the peace treaties and fostered the Dolchstoßlegende – which will happen again once the US and NATO dissuade the Ukrainians from crossing the border as the Russian Army retreats in a semblance of order. Also one T. Woodrow Wilson, who doggedly pursued the fata morgana of self-determination as all across Europe, multiple ethnicities with claims to the same territory fought and bled over them – & frankly I can see the same sort of thing happening to the RF in resource-rich regions with non-Russian populations, i.e., Chechen Wars N.0 where N = whodafucknose.
Which we will flub because the Russians don’t know how to live in any political system but a crony-capitalist kleptocracy, and they will have zero opportunity to learn while they are consumed with dreams of resentment, revenge and retribution, and until we solve our bazillionaire-oligarchs problems (on about the 38th of Never) we’ll not have a lot to teach them. < barf >
Omnes Omnibus
@TBone: Fuck it. I quit.
Bupalos
I think historical determinism is almost oxymoronic.
No political entity to that point in history or since caused more senseless devastation in Europe than Germany. And you could say that in 1918 and be right, or 1943 and be even more right. Today Germany is the economic engine and liberal bulwark of Europe. Largely because instead of punishing and locking it out, we gave it a better place to go.
Obviously I guess everything hinges on what them “cleaning house themselves” means. All I’m arguing is we need to be a viable parter for reformist and democratic elements in a post-Putin Russia, and need to be open to providing them a place to go after their failed attempt at empire. Recognize that this kind of imperial spasm isn’t particularly unique. All the other European states lost their last imperial war before they found the EU and peace through cooperation. This can be Russia’s chance to win by losing. There is nothing congenitally wrong with Russians or any mass of millions of humans. There are accidents of history that we have to be clear eyed about but which can be overcome.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Please don’t quit. Your quite knowledgable comment was one of the more useful parts of the conversation!
Okay, I get quitting engaging with people who don’t want to listen, but please don’t quit engaging.
Almost Retired
@TBone: Thanks, but I’m pretty sure everyone here already understood what the KGB and Stasi did, so I’m not sure I get your point?
AlaskaReader
@Anyway: Sure can.
Old School had it too.
Geminid
@Uncle Cosmo: One benefit Putin derives from drafting so many men from eastern minority areas like Dagestan is there will be fewer left to rebel against Moscow’s rule.
On the other hand, Putin had better hope he can get most of them killed in Ukraine, because the veterans who make it home could be real trouble.
Jay
@Bupalos:
Nope, we punished the hell out of them, Dresden, etc.
Then, for a while, we even engaged in de-Nazification.
We hit many of their “War Corporations” with reparations.
We actually forced Democracy down their throats while occupying them.
We made them witness their own war crimes at gunpoint, executed and jailed many war criminals.
Then, as the Cold War grew, we brought in more carrots than sticks, (some more than others, France stayed pretty big on sticks).
We kept their army and police forces, tiny.
As their economy started to recover in the 1960’s mostly due to population growth and Turkish workers, (funny how losing millions of slave labourers crashes an economy), they brought in their own de-Nazification programs and re-education.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied-occupied_Germany
We, the West are not going to Occupy ruZZia.
We are not going to “make them” make the changes they need to make to rejoin the World at gunpoint, like we did in Germany and Japan.
They have to “lift themselves up by their own bootstraps”.
Lyrebird
@rikyrah: Got out of work late, and was just coming on over to thank you for this, and to thank WG for getting your lucid and urgent commentary on the front page!!
Bupalos
@Uncle Cosmo: I’m not saying any of that will be easy. I take the central objection (that I’m faaar more optimistic about) to be the “they only know how to live” in a kleptocracy. Stuff like that is true until it isn’t, and history constantly makes a mockery of these “permanent trait of the soul” takes. There has never been a more universally agreed version of this than “Germans are militaristic and glory-hungry.” It’s true until it isn’t.
I also think one could have spun much the same line about Ukraine until the revolution of dignity and Euromaidan, which a lot of people STILL can’t wrap their heads around and insist must be some kind of American coup. “National character” is mostly a type of fiction we use to tell stories and for our own purposes.
Captain C
@rikyrah:
Additionally, many of the Russian casualties are from minority groups who live nowhere near Moscow and St. Petersburg. Putin is happy to try to overrun Ukraine to the last Chuvash, Chechen, Tatar, or Yakut. From his point of view, it also reduces the number of potentially restive minorities of fighting age.
Jay
@Bupalos:
oh, and Germany also had a massive refugee crisis, as the Eastern Block kicked millions of “ethnic” Germans out of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Ukraine, Romania, etc.
We are not going to ethnically cleanse Russian speakers and the ethnically Russians from the West, other than maybe the ruZZian Orthodox Church/FSB/GRU Spy stations.
TBone
@Almost Retired: I very clearly stated in my first comment on this thread about Pooty and Stasi that “I don’t know” how much people here are aware of that history. In a post about history. Shame on me for advocating reading about it.
Omnes Omnibus
@TBone: And it turned out that a bunch of people knew quite a bit about it.
Holy fuck, I just looked at your link @68. It literally states that he was a KGB liaison to the Stasi. Fucking literacy, how does it work?
Bupalos
@Jay: I don’t know what you’re noping out on. I’ll repeat the central point, which is not in opposition to whatever serious meaning can be made from the inherently ridiculous (and frequently racially vindictive and status-quo reinforcing) old saw of “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.”
If you’re noping out on that, favorably alluding to mythical permanent traits of the Russian soul, and looking to collectively punish the mass of Russians, then I think you’re unknowingly rooting for more destruction. Or maybe knowingly doing so, what do I know. Revenge is a thing, and cutting off your nose to spite your face is too.
Jay
@Bupalos:
Name one, in ruZZia.
There are a few in exile, some are just faux reformers, more anti Putin/pro Empire than pro reform and democracy, some are just Putin plants, the rest are either dead, or in the Gulags.
When the Putin “Era” passes, ruZZia will just get another Dictator, who will make some empty “nice words” to the West to try to get sanctions and arrest warrant lifted, and there will be many in the West who will want to go back to “business as usual”.
Bupalos
@Jay: First, why do they have to be in Russia? Hopefully you’re aware that millions of Russians including all the regime opponents that aren’t insanely brave fled.
The biggest one I can think of IN Russia is of course now a corpse, because he’s one of the more pathologically courageous people on the planet. But there are in fact millions of people in Russia, most of them young, who want democratic change and bear no relation to the collective portrait you want to paint. And thousands who have risked more than you’re ever likely to have to risk hoping for a better future. Your collective punishment angle is not a better hope for peace than doing everything we can to support this generation.
Bupalos
@Omnes Omnibus: Good god can you not? This a fucking absolute zero of a dispute you’re blowing up into a chance to just frag someone for no goddam reason. How many KGB agents can dance on the head of a dead ballerina.
Jay
@Bupalos:
Naw, he was just another wannabe Putin.
The one who could maybe have been a “turn the page” was shot in front of the Kremlin by a Chechen hit squad years ago.
The reason why I say, “in ruZZia” is because ruZZia controls what ruZZians see and hear from outside ruZZia.
And of course, because Western support for reformers is an actual “kiss of death” in ruZZia.
AlaskaReader
@Traveller: Porter signed today.
Bupalos
@Jay: Republicans and Democrats are the same. Hillary gives speeches to bankers for money and said “superpredator.” Biden rigged the bankruptcy bill.
This just isn’t realistic and is a kind of personal expressive politics that gets us nowhete.
No, Navalny wasn’t a wannabe Putin.
Jay
@Bupalos:
https://www.euronews.com/2023/07/07/racist-or-revolutionary-is-alexei-navalny-who-many-westerners-think-he-is
Ukraine did not mourn his arrest or passing.
I am going to go with their take, rather than vatnicks, ruZZian apologists or those who want NordStream repaired.
Jay
@Bupalos:
It’s all moot, anyway.
Putin will be in charge, (36% fake ballots), in front of or behind the curtain for the next 20 years at least.
There is no reformist/democratic ruZZian opposition of any amount or consequence.
Bupalos
@Jay: That’s an article by a non-Ukrainian mostly-sportswriter for the Guardian giving some selected quotes from the (brilliant) Brittish researcher and one of our top 5 Russia experts in the west, Jade McGlynn. I highly encourage you to watch her excellent interviews or talks, this article is very flat and doesn’t really reflect her full views on Navalny or anything else. I think you’ll agree if you visit much of her content that she is excellent and I think you’d come away with good things. This interview with Johnathan Fink is very good, centering on one of the central questions Westerners have about the lack of visible opposition in Russia and what it really means.
Jay
@Bupalos:
thanks, but I will stick to the Ukrainians, Georgians, Free Russian’s and expat Chechen’s opinions on him.
You know, people who are actually fighting.
Bupalos
@Jay: Oh my, I’d definitely take that bet. I won’t say it’s impossible that he holds on that long…
actually now that I think about it that really is completely impossible. He’s in an escalatory spiral that even if he can control and even if it’s somehow wildly successful and Russia becomes Nazi Germany, even that will be self-limiting and self-eating before that. And the dude is old and seems to have mysterious maladies. You’re really suggesting he’s going to be in charge at age 91?
Bupalos
@Jay: Wow, didn’t know you knew and spoke with all those people. The Kremlin certainly agrees too. Rather vehemently, I’m afraid. By all means then, you seem all set with your Euroleague sources here. Go team! I’m also going to recommend Vlad Vexler and Timothy Snyder as other experts you’ll want to ignore.
wjca
It would be more accurate to say that they are native speakers of Russian (the language). Which, as with Ukraine, doesn’t make them automatic supporters of a Russian takeover — that assumption is the exact mistake Putin made.
RaflW
@Ruckus: Very late to circle back to this, so probably speaking into a quiet night, but I don’t think I understand. I was expressing real curiosity about the Swedes – and I have pretty deep personal connections there, so I sure wouldn’t want to come off as some entitled twit wanting Sweden to do something for the US.
I want Sweden (and all the Baltics) to not get f*ked by Putin!
Jay
@wjca:
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, have for the past 20 years, had programs to bring “Russian” speakers and pensioners, into the fold,
with not a lot of success.
As the carrot didn’t work, in light of all the sabotage, they are now going for the stick.
Poland will shortly be joining them.
Jay
@RaflW:
we have multi-National NATO “tripwires” all across the former Bloc states.
ruZZia can’t attack Estonia with out killing NATO troops.
TBone
@Bupalos: thank you. I’m not the only person on the planet who holds an opinion that the Stasi years had an impact:
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-06-15/russia-putin-early-kgb-years-east-germany-helped-shape-him
TBone
@TBone: that’s how literacy works.
Paul in KY
@Chris: Very true, Chris!
Paul in KY
@gene108: ‘A’ Russian Army. They can always come up with more.
Paul in KY
@Bupalos: There were several major Jewish Bolsheviks…until Stalin killed them all. I think Kaganovich was the only one who survived.
Paul in KY
@Bupalos: 27