Food for thought.
Let’s talk Ukraine.
There’s a lot of analysis out there that I believe is driven by a fundamental misunderstanding of the way Russia fights wars.
Bottom line up front: Russia’s current goals in Ukraine aren’t necessarily victory, at least not in the traditional military…
— Angry Staffer 🌻 (@Angry_Staffer) April 26, 2024
Here’s the entire contents of the tweet. (just below)
I found it interesting and approachable, but not overwhelming, and I thought it might generate some good discussion.
Angry Staffer
11:47 AM · Apr 26, 2024
Let’s talk Ukraine.
There’s a lot of analysis out there that I believe is driven by a fundamental misunderstanding of the way Russia fights wars.
Bottom line up front: Russia’s current goals in Ukraine aren’t necessarily victory, at least not in the traditional military sense.
We’ve seen evidence of this since even before Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. More on that later.
Would Putin like to “get the gang back together” and continue rebuilding his sphere of influence in the former Soviet states? Absolutely. Is that his primary goal? Not even close.
Putin’s stated goal for decades has been preventing NATO expansion, which he views as an existential threat to the Russian Federation’s survival. His “special military operation” obviously failed spectacularly in this regard.
Putin was furious when Estonia and Latvia joined NATO; he’s clearly not happy about Finland and Sweden joining either, but Ukraine? Ukraine would be the ultimate insult.
So what’s the best way to keep Ukraine from joining NATO?
– You could corrupt their electoral process and install a puppet. They tried that and failed.
– You could conquer the whole country. They tried that and failed.
– You could keep them in a perpetual state of warfare—a stalemate and a war of attrition—knowing that NATO won’t allow them in while they’re tied up in a hot war. That’s where we’re at now.
Back to how we’ve seen these signs since at least Crimea:
To put these datapoints together, it’s important to understand how invested Russia is in their nonlinear war strategy.
In 2014, after Yanukovych was ousted, sentiment was that Ukraine would gravitate more towards NATO. Putin immediately moved to annex Crimea.
In April 2014, the Crimea occupation evolved into fighting in Donbas, and thus began the perpetual conflict strategy.
In 2015-2016, Russia was working on two additional fronts: devastating Ukrainian critical infrastructure with a barrage of cyber attacks, and interfering in our Presidential election.
For context here: remember some of Russia’s goals with their 2016 influence operation:
– hurt US support for Ukraine (they did that when Trump and Manafort forced a massive change in RNC Ukraine policy)
– denigrate Hillary Clinton with the goal of hurting her Presidency, or electing Donald Trump
– They had a clear preference for Trump, and after watching Trump get impeached for trying to extort Zelenskyy, it’s clear why:
Electing Trump furthered their goal of keeping Ukraine in conflict indefinitely.
To be clear, in February 2022, Russia seems to have shifted their goals temporarily; hey legitimately thought they could take Kyiv in a 3-Day operation, in what has to be one of the biggest intelligence failures in history.
Now they’re back to plan stalemate. Some of this is because they know if Trump gets elected in 2024, US support for Ukraine (and probably NATO) will end.
With this understanding of Russia’s goals, the way forward is pretty clear in my eyes:
We give Ukraine what they need to win. Immediately. Simply giving them enough to defend themselves only acts to further Russia’s goals of a tactical stalemate.
A tactical stalemate will never put enough pressure on Putin to force an end to this war. We have to stop being risk averse and let Ukraine go on offense.
This last aid package — combined with EU support — goes a long way towards advancing this capability, but we still have work to do.
Totally open thread.
rikyrah
Thanks for this tweet. Completely understand and agree.
frosty
Good analysis. Let’s do it!
lowtechcyclist
I won’t argue how big an intel failure it was, but to the extent that Russia’s failure to take Kyiv is evidence, one must remember how close they really came. It was touch and go.
MattF
Speaking of Russia. Stephen Kotkin, a historian at Princeton, has published two out of a projected three volume biography of Stalin, V3 is due next year. He’s an engaging lecturer, and obviously relishes being on stage. He’s seen here at the Met, with six possible futures for Russia, starting about 18 minutes into the video.
As long as you’re watching Ivy League historians discussing possible consequences of Russian defeat, here’s Timothy Snyder.
trollhattan
Dubious of this–not whether it would be good for Ukraine and the West, but whether it’s even possible.
1. “win” is undefined. Push Russia out to the pre 2014 borders? Pre 2022 borders? Ceasefire in place?
2. How much and which materiel is proposed to arm the current Ukraine military in order to accomplish the above? Since there are no literal magic bullets, one can’t fill the air with F-35s flown by pilots trained in Soviet era warplanes, and Ukraine has no vast untapped reserves of soldiers, it seems as though rearming the current military more or less retains the status quo. So long as Putin is willing to send his own troops to slaughter while mining, trenching and hardening the captured lands, he’s not quitting his manic quest.
Ending Russia’s invasion perhaps requires regime change in Russia, importantly to one not even more empire-crazed than Putin.
Mr. Bemused Senior
I attended an Adam Schiff event on Sunday. He led off his speech talking about Ukraine and the passage of the aid package. An audience question, “what changed to get the bill passed?” got the response [paraphrasing] Mike Johnson did the right thing after exhausting all the other possibilities. Of course, many Republicans (though not a majority of them) supported sending the aid.
lashonharangue
Angry staffer sounds a lot like a certain FPer.
Jay C
VERY interesting- and IMO, quite accurate.
However, it still doesn’t address the issue of what a Ukrainian “victory” should look like. Obviously, the optimal situation (a return to the 1991 borders, at the very least) isn’t going be be a likely outcome, and it will still leave the issue(s) of Donetsk, Luhansk and/or Crimea unresolved.
Again, optimally, those regions should be returned to Ukrainian sovereignty; but in reality, they are pretty much mainly the only bargaining chips Putin really has. Well, that, and the operations attacking the country in the first place…
Melancholy Jaques
@trollhattan:
I agree with the first part, but worry about the second part.
I am skeptical of any predictions based on Russia’s past, but how long did it take for them to decide they’d had enough in Afghanistan?
Jeffro
we could call it a Russian intel failure…
…or, we could call it an international crisis that was handled extremely pro-actively and well by the Biden Administration.
Jerry
If, like me, you are no longer with Twitter, Angry Staffer also posts consistently on Threads. Here’s the Threads version of this thread.
WaterGirl
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
I would add and inflicting the maximum amount of damage in Ukraine.
WaterGirl
@lashonharangue:
Really? I don’t think so at all. I don’t see Angry Staffer trashing Biden and the foreign policy team. He’s talking about various phases, and what the next phase (in his opinion) should be.
We give Ukraine what they need to win. Immediately. Simply giving them enough to defend themselves only acts to further Russia’s goals of a tactical stalemate.
S Cerevisiae
Ukraine needs to take out Putin’s bridge to Crimea.
WaterGirl
@Jay C:
I’m okay with that. If this were a comprehensive article that talked about 6 different things, it would be too overwhelming and I wouldn’t engage with it.
I would love to see another of these (short) write-ups on what potential victories could look like.
trollhattan
@Melancholy Jaques:
Soviets were in Afghanistan ten years and lost roughly 15,000 troops. Importantly, it began under Brezhnev and ended under Gorbachev (with those two other guys in between).
W/O Gorby, who can guess how long it would have gone on?
Mr. Bemused Senior
You will get no argument from me.
Betty Cracker
@trollhattan: Sounds about right to me. Le sigh!
lashonharangue
@WaterGirl: I meant his assessment of Putin and how long the Russians have been waging this war along multiple dimensions.
the pollyanna from hell
Reading history books fosters an illusion that wars are fought for the ending. Crusades, Hundred, and Thirty Years’ War are somehow not enough to break this illusion.
UncleEbeneezer
Martin
Ok, this is where I get very annoyed with these political institutions. When Republicans break norms, they are exploiting a loophole to get what they want when they know Democrats will still adhere to those norms because we, the audience, insist they do so. You get an asymmetrical power dynamic because Democrats have to play by the rules (because somebody has to!) and GOP doesn’t. So Democrats lose.
Putin is doing the same thing – using NATOs rules against them. Ukraine is permanently excluded from NATO so long as Russia keeps skirmishing on the border. And we sit back and shake our little fist and say ‘that darn Putin has outwitted us!’. But it’s our fucking rule. We can change the rule. We can create an intermediate relationship or an establish a partial form of protection. We had no issue whatsoever shooting down rockets on behalf of Israel when Iran attacked (and Jordan and the UK and SA joined us there), and they aren’t fucking in NATO. We did it as a courtesy. We don’t have to accept Russias ‘one weird trick’.
I mean, yes, predictability and consistency in foreign policy is extremely important – no question. But that doesn’t mean rewarding bad acts.
WaterGirl
@Martin: Totally agree.
TBone
@MattF: thanks that history perfesser from Princeton is fun
Martin
@the pollyanna from hell: Those mainly predate the concept of nation-states (1648). They certainly predate the history of the US. It’s arguable that the concept even applies in modernity. And maybe Russia is trying to test that – they certainly have certain affinities to the empires that predated the rise of nation-states.
StringOnAStick
@Martin: Well said. Putin is exploiting that NATO rule. It needs to be changed. Putin ‘s efforts to bring about a growing RW polity in Europe has many benefits for him, one of which is to head this off at the pass.
PJ
From everything I’ve read, “NATO expansion” is just a bugaboo that Putin uses to justify whatever terrible thing he wants to do this week. What he wants to do is 1) maintain his de facto dictatorship and kleptocracy in Russia, and 2) to expand the Russian Empire to its Soviet or Romanov boundaries. Obviously NATO is a hindrance to number 2, for those countries that are part of NATO, and dismantling NATO would be a huge win for him, but it’s a means to an end.
Putin’s biggest beef is that functioning and thriving democracies close to Russia lead Russian citizens to get ideas of their own about how their country should be run, and puts his rule in an unfavorable light. It wasn’t Ukraine joining NATO that prompted the invasion of Crimea and the Donbass, it was Ukraine getting closer to the EU. A Ukraine that was democratic and more prosperous than Russia would be the worst thing for him, thus it had to be stopped.
Melancholy Jaques
@the pollyanna from hell:
Depends on which history books one is reading.
rikyrah
@UncleEbeneezer:
clap clap clap clap
UncleEbeneezer
We saw Zendaya’s new tennis movie, Challengers, yesterday and it is SO MUCH BETTER than the trailer would leave you to believe. I thought it was going to be a silly, sexy, rom-com designed primarily to let everyone ogle Zendaya in cute tennis outfits while two attractive guys (Josh O’Conner and Mike Faist) pursue her. Kind of a modern version of the extremely exploitative 80’s, male-gaze, B-movies like Hardbodies.
But the film is actually a fairly deep, serious drama about a triangle of friends/lovers and how they navigate the complexity of tennis careers that forced them into strikingly different directions. It also highlights the fairly excruciating life of the challengers circuit players who are mostly playing to make just enough $ to make it to the next tournament.
Zendaya gives the best performance but all three main characters are solid. The tennis in the film is more believable and more exciting than most tennis films. And there are lots of little details that will make you happy if you are a tennis fan.
The steamy, flirty, almost-threeway scene is obviously pretty central to the film’s plot, but even that didn’t seem ridiculous or gross. In fact, Zendaya is really the one running the show (which is the hottest part about it!) and indeed, while the movie primarily focuses on the men (including the amount of thirst imagery), despite being the center of the love triangle, Tashi/Zendaya always feels like the person most in control of everything.
The soundtrack by Trent Reznor is really fantastic, the cinematography is great and innovative. And as much as I loved King Richard and Battle of the Sexes, it’s nice to see a tennis movie that isn’t just another bio-pic. Challengers is more like a combination of Match Point and Saltburn.
You definitely don’t have to be a tennis super-fan to enjoy it. And while it’s more than JUST scantily-clad, eye-candy, there certainly is plenty of that too. Very good and surprisingly “artsy” film. More like this please, Hollywood.
Martin
@StringOnAStick: I don’t think it needs to be changed. It’s a good rule, but one reason why modern capitalism is making such a mockery of democracy is because at least in the US, the concept of bill of attainders, prevent the government from directly addressing abuses. The government can’t normally say ‘yo, Boeing, you are fucking up fix your shit’, so what they do is say ‘any corporation that suffers x violations of FAA policy will be precluded from bidding on a defense contract for y years’ kind of thing, and Boeing says, oh, if we just sue the FAA and prove that one of those violations wasn’t a violation we slip back under the line and we’re good to go or they find one of a zillion other loopholes.
It’s like trying to contain a misbehaving pet by writing rules on sticky notes and putting them on their bowl, rather than a stern ‘no’.
One problem with technocratic administration is an overadherence to textualism – ‘well, the rule doesn’t _technically_ say you can’t do this, so we’ll add 3 more rules to clarify that’ rather than say ‘everyone knows what the fucking rule is supposed to do, we’re going to enforce it even with this ambiguity’ because another 1000 pages of rule making doesn’t clarify things, it simply creates more loopholes.
I’m not saying to admit Ukraine to NATO and ignore the rule. I’m saying ‘okay, if Russia is going to cut off the path to NATO by exploring the rule, we’re going to compensate by creating his other coalition who will help Ukraine push Russia across their borders to address that. To give one example – using NATO assets in and outside of Ukraine simply to shoot down missile/drone attacks from Russia – exactly as we did with the Iran retaliation on Israel. Start by taking that pressure off of Ukraine. If you can do the whole thing from NATO space, all the better.
Rathskeller
@StringOnAStick: I have had similar daydreams, where Russian forces attack a NATO country in an undeniable way, leading to a furious counterattack by significantly better-armed armies.
But the reality in how Russia is prosecuting this war is that they don’t care, at all, how many non-Russian ethnics they care. And their economy is so bad that they can literally entice people from their poorer regions into a buzzsaw with propaganda and modest payments. The recent BBC estimate is over 100K deaths, so you have to go back to WW2 to find its equivalent.
So the reality for NATO and for for every EU and US voter who is paying attention is that we would lose a lot of soldiers fighting this madness. The NATO rule will not change, and NATO will not get involved unless a member country is overtly attacked.
Xantar
@PJ: yeah, I’ve never understood this idea that NATO expansion is an existential threat to Russia. It’s not like NATO plans to invade. We saw what happened the last two times a European force tried to march into Russia. Nobody has any incentive to repeat that adventure.
rikyrah
Marvin Sapp InTheSkreets/Marvin Gaye InTheSheets (@groove_sdc) posted at 11:36 AM on Mon, Apr 29, 2024:
President Biden is not alienating the youth vote.
Saboteurs are creating narratives that put him in no-win situations to peel votes from him.
Whatever he does they say it’s not enough.
They’ve been doing this to Democratic nominees for a long time but it ramped up in 2016.
(https://x.com/groove_sdc/status/1784985177590018357?t=7arQOomLq4Vh5BVKgJCkQg&s=03)
rikyrah
BWA HA AH AHA HA HA HA HA H AH
Raw Story (@RawStory) posted at 8:03 AM on Mon, Apr 29, 2024:
Trump shoves Kari Lake out of Mar-a-Lago and frets she’ll be electoral liability: report
https://t.co/JMAvECnuUs
(https://x.com/RawStory/status/1784931577106923659?t=crej5eqG4w8KnN4pY6w_cA&s=03)
rikyrah
MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) posted at 10:44 AM on Mon, Apr 29, 2024:
NEW: Trump posted a QAnon video boasting of nations and political leaders “submitting” to him. Trump’s video claims Israel, the Vatican, the Queen, Canada, Russia, and others have “submitted.” This is the one the creepiest things you will see. https://t.co/ryUdF7EdY1
(https://x.com/MeidasTouch/status/1784971987628208196?t=-YZu1yLu2FL0Y5ufidA9rA&s=03)
rikyrah
Biden’s Wins (@BidensWins) posted at 7:28 AM on Mon, Apr 29, 2024:
BREAKING: New economic analysis shows household wealth for Americans under 40 is up 49% from its pre-pandemic level. An incredible testament to Bidenomics’ success.
(https://x.com/BidensWins/status/1784922596938600628?t=37Kw9ogUrBF9u-SUrt_djg&s=03)
rikyrah
Yep
Jess Piper (@piper4missouri) posted at 6:51 AM on Mon, Apr 29, 2024:
The Republican party exists to give wealthy people tax cuts and corporate favors.
They talk non-millionaires into voting for them by creating culture wars that have no impact on their lives. Bait and switch.
(https://x.com/piper4missouri/status/1784913502034903101?t=lPQPsbBy7-jT8F1dEd6zdg&s=03)
rikyrah
LOL
The Art Of Dialogue (@ArtOfDialogue_) posted at 1:59 PM on Sun, Apr 28, 2024:
Bill Bellamy goes to Buc-ee’s for the first time and says it looks like a Costco on steroids. https://t.co/GdSIHYssJp
(https://x.com/ArtOfDialogue_/status/1784658661710725274?t=f8afIL1zTd7QhfIdQqd0mg&s=03)
rikyrah
I honestly believe that the DNC needs to invest in ads like this.
Respond directly and consistently to:
” Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago.”
Club folks over the head and force them away from their ridiculously short memories.
Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) posted at 8:04 AM on Mon, Apr 29, 2024:
Four years ago today, as Americans were dying
Q: Without a vaccine, why do you think the virus will just be gone?
Trump: It’s gonna go. It’s gonna leave. It’s gonna be gone. It’s gonna be eradicated. And it might take longer. It might be in smaller sections https://t.co/ql1Jd59u4p
(https://x.com/BidenHQ/status/1784931688201539632?t=FWiGO5gJK2_oxEy_A3_b9Q&s=03)
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: What’s the creepy whispering on that video? I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but it was creepy.
Also, it’s not clear that Trump made that video. ??
rikyrah
𝐅𝐨𝐱𝐲 💔🇺🇸 🟦 SAVE DEMOCRACY (@Getyourfoxyback) posted at 7:22 PM on Sun, Apr 28, 2024:
If you’re wondering why Trump isn’t on the campaign trail
It has nothing to do with him having to be in court
1.) He has opened ZERO field offices (compared to the Biden campaign that has opened over 100)
2.) The Trump campaign has no money.
3.) The last time he had a day off from court he went golfing.
And there you have it😎
scary lawyerguy (@scarylawyerguy) posted at 7:20 AM on Mon, Apr 29, 2024:
The only problem is that Trump has 100% name recognition, a media ecosystem that views his reelection as better for business than a second Biden term, and in the end, the entire election will come down to half-a-dozen states where Trump & Biden are basically tied.
(https://x.com/scarylawyerguy/status/1784920745891565666?t=ZsSfflRwRJj86mXIWIhwHQ&s=03)
Omnes Omnibus
@rikyrah: Over the weekend, I posted a link to a CBS poll that showed that support for Biden was the same for Under 30s who rated I/P and Gaza as top issues as it is among all other Under 30s.
Martin
So, totally different topic. I was preoccupied this weekend as someone I follow (but don’t really know well) on social media ran into a temporary housing problem and we offered them a room for the weekend to get through their jam, and it was a completely lovely weekend.
I think we really underestimate how much damage the 2016 election and then Covid did to the social fabric. These two events that put so much focus on the unavoidable truth that a sizable amount of society simply isn’t invested in the well-being of their fellow citizens, and how good it feels to add a new stitch to that fabric.
And when I talk about the college protests – that’s ultimately what I’m trying to get to. If you can keep the students at the level of ‘this is a difference of ideas, not a difference of people – you are both part of this community and have to keep that cohesion in place’ vs even the temptation to cast it as an us vs them conflict which it rarely is unless it’s about something very direct, but still tears the fabric. If you can do this, you avoid the need for violence (calling the cops is ‘violence’ in this sense) because if these students bump into each other in class, they still see each other as students.
JoyceH
So the thought is that Russia’s goal is to just keep Ukraine at war forever? I don’t see how that’s even remotely sustainable. Even before the invasion, even before Covid, the population was falling. The cohort of women in childbearing years is the smallest it’s been in decades, due to the instability of the 90s that cratered birth rates, and those women aren’t having babies at the rate of earlier generations. How many more prisons can they empty?
WaterGirl
@JoyceH: Russia has all those Ukranian children that they stole. Maybe that’s their long-term plan for adding to their population.
Martin
@Xantar: Most of the threats the US internalizes are not military ones but cultural ones. We were a lot more afraid of the concept of socialism or the rejection of organized religion than we were about Soviet bombers.
I have to think a little bit about the idea of Russia reverting to the culture of a pre-Westphalian empire, which the western precepts of freedom of religion/expression etc would present a serious threat to.
Roberto el oso
Things change of course, even when they’re supposedly written in stone, but I haven’t seen anything that leads me to believe the Ukrainians will settle for anything short of getting Donetsk and Luhansk back, and driving the Russians back across the border. Liberating Crimea is doubtless part of the ideal but the first step would be to reclaim the occupied territory in order to cut off the potable water supply. Even if the Ukrainians take a breather of sorts (an official ceasefire or something else), it seems paramount that they should try and bring down the Merch Bridge at some point.
Martin
@rikyrah: That’s gotta hurt being the only woman Trump ever kicked out of bed.
Martin
@rikyrah: I think if we could get on top of housing costs, the economy would ‘feel’ substantially better.
Steeplejack
New York Times Pitchbot: “Opinion | Arm the Puppies.”
Nettoyeur
Angry Staffer’s analysis sounds well thought out and reality based.
Retaking Donbass and Crimea could be very hard even with more Western arms. Manpower shortages could become critical. And there is the Trump threat.
I wonder if there comes a point where Ukraine decides to let go of some of the seuzed territories in order to not be at war and thereby able to join NATO according to present rules. Alternatively, can NATO isolate the Putinists in Hungary and let Ukrainw join in spite of rhe war Both sthese are longshots, but tough times require tough decisions.
Martin
@rikyrah: The risk of focusing on Covid is that at the most basic, Covid wasn’t Trump’s fault. It takes the eye a little bit off the ball of Trumps policies which were terrible and deliberate. If you’re worried that people are cooling on Biden over Gaza, focus on Trump taking people’s children away from them and the losing the paperwork so we could give them back.
oldgold
I know virtually no one here agrees with me, but
Last week the prosecution’s first witness, the table setter for the trial, gave 7 or 8 hours of direct testimony chopped up over four days. Not the best way to set the trial’s narrative.
Today is another day lost. A 3 day break in the trial is another impediment to the prosecution developing a coherent narrative. And, the waters the jury is swimming in away from the trial are full of pollution and possibly shark infested.
Looking forward, it appears that some of this week’s trial time will be lost to a second hearing on Trump’s alleged violation of the Court’s Gag Order. Hopefully, before this hearing begins, the Judge will see fit to rule on the first Gag Order hearing.
Nettoyeur
@Martin: Russia under Putin is already falling back to the regime of Tsar Ivan the Terrible in which Moscow is the Third Rome, Orthodoxy the true faith, and the economy is controlled by the sovereign through the silovoki. Foreign influence is to be rejected by force.
brendancalling
On another totally different note, I went to what was surely the most… different life celebration I’ve ever been attended.
My stepsister belongs to a group, mainly women but some men, who go to a regular 80s dance party night here in Philly. Her BFF organizes the group—and BFF has terminal cancer. She’s got anywhere from a few weeks to a few months left, so with that knowledge BFF organized her own celebration of life, as an 80s dance party. Kind of a cross between “This is your life,” a wake, and… well, a dance party. Lots of emotion, some tears, lots of smiles, very weird. I’m still struggling with it, but one thing is certain: if I’m lucky enough (not sure that’s the right turn of phrase) to know that I have a few weeks/months to live, I am going to have the exact same kind of event.
Omnes Omnibus
@Nettoyeur: Every war ends with some kind of agreement. This isn’t the time to be focusing on that though. It’s also not really an American or Western European decision. If our support disappeared tomorrow, I would expect that the Ukrainians would continue fighting.
Scout211
@rikyrah:
And when you appoint indicted co-conspirators to the RNC state office you are showing your hand that you might just go in another way to get Trump elected. Who needs an election when you already have election fraud experience?
PJ
@Xantar:
Well, the Germans defeated them in WWI, before losing on the Western Front. The Japanese also whipped their butts in 1905. And they lost the Crimean War, too.
But no, NATO has never invaded Russia, or any Warsaw Pact country, for that matter, though the Soviet Union and Russia saw fit to provide a little “fraternal assistance” more than once.
Every country that signed up for NATO since 1989 has done it out of fear of being invaded by Russia, and many of them have historical precedent to back it up.
Sister Golden Bear
@JoyceH: The Russians don’t need to keep things at a full-scale war indefinitely, just enough to block NATO membership from being considered. E.g. skirmishes over “contested” territory, occasional missile strikes, etc.
Although admittedly this would be involve Putin/Russia scaling back (at least temporarily) their desire to re-establish the boundaries of Imperial Russia, which would also include the Baltic Countries and Poland.
Betty Cracker
@Steeplejack: Hahaha!
Old School
@Steeplejack:
Nice. I know there is a hope this story will fade away, but I did get a laugh out of this Atrios post.
JWR
@Martin:
This, exactly! As to why this isn’t happening already is perhaps best explained by Adam’s nightly Ukraine posts?
Gin & Tonic
Angry Staffer’s analysis is a crock of shit. Putin’s aims are clear and have been, publicly, for years – he does not view Ukraine as a legitimate nationality or nation, and wants to destroy it. Full stop.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Sister Golden Bear: @Nettoyeur:
I think @PJ nails it. The threat to Putin is not military, it is cultural. He can’t afford to allow ordinary Russians to get the idea there’s a better way to run a society. Whipping up an external enemy is an important component of retaining power.
MisterForkbeard
@JoyceH:
I don’t think the war in Ukraine is causing enough Russian deaths to exacerbate this kind of problem. But the threat is real to Ukraine.
I have a rightwing/tankie coworker who is arguing that we should give up Ukraine unilaterally. He asked what Ukraine (or we) got out of continuing a war they’re unlikely to win. I told him “Literally every day they’re not under Russian control is a positive for them, because they’re very likely to be killed, oppressed, imprisoned or severely punished if they lose. Better to be under threat during a war than to be dead.”
He asked me to consider whether or not your country being in a war was better than being killed. That’s the sort of idiocy we have to deal with. :/
Melancholy Jaques
@oldgold:
Why do you say this? I agree with you.
But I am not as worried as you about the jurors ability to hold onto the narrative.
UncleEbeneezer
@Omnes Omnibus: A recent poll of voters also showed Gaza well below Women’s Reproductive Rights and several other issues when asked what was the most important issue. MSM alarmism (aided and abetted by GOP ratfucking) and hyper-focus on social media/Lefty-blogs would make you think that Gaza is the single, most important issue leading into November, but when voters are asked, it really isn’t.
cain
@rikyrah: He has racism and white supremacy on his side and that’s a powerful thing.
H didn’t open adequate field offices or anything in 2016 either and I remember thinking that Hillary Clinton had it in the bag because she was way better organized.
Salty Sam
Goes by various names- “Living Funeral”, “Living Wake” (I’d love to host one called “A Woke Wake”!)- it is an emerging and welcome trend in our culture’s approach to death and dying.
I have recently taken on a new role in my own later-stage of life- I have become a hospice volunteer and a certified “End-Of-Life Doula”. I haven’t had the opportunity to help plan such an event (other than my own), but I look forward to it. As it is, most people wait until too late to get hospice or a Doula involved- so far my experience is with actively dying people in their final days or hours.
sab
@the pollyanna from hell: This. Ukraine and Russia have been at war off and on for nearly a thousand years.
WaterGirl
@oldgold: HOLIDAYS!
Holidays come, holidays go; no one really knows how it works.
WaterGirl
@Scout211: It’s definitely a FUCK YOU – We don’t care, we don’t have to – to the rule of law.
It’s like Trump when he said people don’t need to vote. They apparently have something up their sleeve, or think they do.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: I wondered what your take would be.
japa21
@WaterGirl: I didn’t have to wonder. And he’s right when it comes to Ukraine. Putin’s motives in other cases may be different but he has a visceral hatred for anything associated with Ukraine.
Bupalos
Is this “fear of expanding NATO” bullshit ever going to die? I mean, there is a lot of good analysis in Angry Staffer’s missive there, but I think someone might come away the worse off for having read it just because it repeats the absolute howler, once again:
OK look, if you absolutely have to take Putin at face value here (???! while not taking at face value the things he says that conflict with this) then at least extend it and ask WHY HE “FEARS” NATO. Let’s keep listening. When we do we’ll hear that the reason that Putin “fears” NATO (to the extent that this is true) is because he plans to challenge NATO, destroy the international system and existing borders, propel Russia to its rightful destined place of Eurasian domination, and personally assume his mystical place as “gatherer of the Russian lands.” This is what he says when you keep listening. In other words, he’s turning into a paranoid, megalomaniacal freakshow that’s eager to plunge the world into chaos and violence more broadly, and NATO might frown at that.
Now since Putin is absolutely a post-truth politician, it’s fair to ask if this entire “glorious Russia” project is really a lot of non-serious mystical fluff and fakery, that in reality it’s just a piece of political technology centered on regime survival. If that is the case, then yes, it may be true that Putin’s real aims are mostly answered simply by conducting a lower-grade campaign of perpetual murder and destabilization in Ukraine just to keep it in its place. Because the REAL threat there is simply a successful alternative political system emerging on a space so many Russians think of as a literally and figuratively lower part of Russia. It would provide the thing in Russian politics that Putin works so assiduously to murder: the certainty of the possibility that things could be different if the population entered into politics. That is simply politically untenable for Putin, he will view that as very likely to lead quickly to his own death or imprisonment.
In reality, we don’t have to choose between these aims. The most likely case is that there is a minimal and maximal outcome Putin still has in mind for this invasion, as badly as it has gone for him. Neither of them are things the west can countenance or suffer without doing great harm to our own democracies.
grubert
Bill Browser’s opinion about Putin’s reasons slightly less grandiose.. more realistic imo.
https://youtu.be/PMu2NhK11sI?si=glLeFexdJ6e-Q9aR
grubert
And.. pretty much what Bupalos said .
Another Scott
Interesting tweet. I think there’s a lot of sense in it.
I worry about the “we” in the tweet though.
[Thinking out loud…]
Macron has broached western troops being in Ukraine. Not necessarily NATO, but maybe members of NATO. Good idea? Maybe? Dunno. Someone needs to explain what they would do and get people in their governments (and societies) to mainly agree.
The problem with the “give them everything they need” is that training and sustainment and all the rest requires people with the necessary skills. A warehouse full of fighters or fancy bombs isn’t going to do them any good, and can be a distraction from stuff they really need.
Ukraine is in a tough spot. VVP obviously thinks that time is on his side. Nobody yet knows if that calculus is correct.
My view is that we need to make it much more painful for VVP. Tighter sanctions, more “smoking accidents”, etc. I’m not opposed to “advisers” helping Ukraine use the weapons they have more effectively and helping to bring them up to speed faster. I’m not even immediately opposed to setting up a “no-fly” zone and enforcing it, but I would want to hear experts talk about what that would actually mean. I would have to be convinced that, say, sending US troops in to push out VVP’s forces in trench warfare would lead to success that could not be achieved any other way.
Ukraine is doing a lot and deserves our support. If they need NATO troops, then we should not immediately say “no” – NATO is not a suicide pact.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
grubert
RE: Tim Snyder … It’s not about Ukraine winning.
It’s about Putin losing
Bupalos
@grubert: I’m not sure I’d consider either end of this spectrum especially more likely, nor will Putin be entirely in control of the militarized and politicized totalitarian turn he is forced to take just to keep the invasion viable and domestic politics stable.
He could well be intending to slow-roll Russian ambitions now, and yet have events and ultra-nationalists force him to the far side of inhabiting this mystical role. Or he could really be drunk with this moronic shit, but unable to actually reshape Russia into a form that can effectively pursue it.
rikyrah
@Scout211:
We are very fortunate that we got Dems ELECTED in the positions over ELECTIONS in those swing states.
Bupalos
I’d be careful with this line. From tanks to air defense to Himars to longer range fires, if anything the Ukrainians have consistently exceeded skill and training expectations. This kind of line tends towards a self-interested obscuring of just who has done the failing of who here.
We’ve punched ourselves in the face due to our own unique weaknesses and democratic incapacities. In first place for failure here, with a bullet, is the United States.
And see? we even held on to the damn bullet! Probably going to have to expend tax dollars to have it decommissioned.
artem1s
@PJ:
BINGO! Follow the money. Putin does not want Ukraine to leave their trading block. Ukraine is the bread basket for eastern Europe. Russia already has almost nothing to trade with the EU as it is. The biggest failure of this invasion was when Germany and other countries that rely on Russian gas and oil got thru the winter without it. The sanctions held.
IMO the next crucial step is getting NATO to agree to liquidating those oligarch’s assets to pay for the rebuild and arming Ukraine thru the end of the year.
The oligarchs and the Russia mob turning on him is the biggest fear Putin has right now. He loses their support and he’s dead – quite possibly literally. The money. Always follow the money.
grubert
@Bupalos: the internal structure of Russian power isn’t the same under Putin as it was in the USSR. No grand ideology to believe in, only money and fear. More a Mafia.
I think Putin’s power is a lot more brittle then it looks like to us. There are other forces at play.
grubert
But I really doubt Putin has grand ideas.. he’s just a petty thug trying to stay afloat.
Agree w most all of what you say though.
Bupalos
@Nettoyeur: Ukraine might come to such a point, but Putin likely cannot afford to let Ukraine alone, really under any circumstances that would allow it to thrive.
And potentially acceptable deal to Putin (prior to the next regime stability threat emerging) is “I’ll stop murdering you indiscriminately as long as you remain clearly more miserable than Russians.”
It will be further impossible for relations to be normalized between these countries because the new authoritarian Russia has a new great Russian crime that has to be covered up by inventing thoughtcrime. Just as it is now illegal to mention the Von Ribbentrop Pact in Russia, it’s going to be illegal in the future for there to be any reality-based discussion of Ukraine. Which will mean Russians can not be allowed communication with Ukrainians.
With “realistic” peach proposals we’re all kind of skating around the actual reality that Russia as currently constituted will have no capacity to engage in normal peaceful relations.
Martin
@Nettoyeur: Yeah, that’s how it feels to me. I guess I too had expected post-soviet Russia to settle into a conventional modern nation-state of some manner, but it feels increasingly like Putin is going in the other direction – to czarist Russia and what came before.
grubert
@Bupalos: reason I think Putin is just a petty mob boss and not a delusional megalomaniac is that he hasn’t been building or preparing his nation for conquest..he’s just been stealing.
Bupalos
@grubert: Yes, that is an understatement even.
Although Putin is trying to have Russia take a turn towards mystical nationalist ideology, if he can accomplish that it will be a very new state of affairs. He’ll have more solid personal control.
Brittle indeed. In doing the math on nuclear risk, Marc Galleoti tossed of the interesting line that there are at least 3 existential risks for Putin in seeking to use nuclear weapons, but the first is that the order will not make it down the chain of command, that he’ll push that lever, and nothing will happen. Which is to say that at any given time, Putin doesn’t really know exactly how much power he has in this mafia regime, nor the potential backlash effects of exceeding that power.
grubert
And letting his capo class live high on the hog, wasting those billions
grubert
@Bupalos: agreed.
Bupalos
@grubert: That is changing. Russian kids in school are starting to have serious almost north-korea style military indoctrination in school.
Can that just be spun up at the snap of a finger? Can the extreme almost militant aversion to “politics” in everyday Russian life be turned on its head? Dunno, but if you wanted to do so, piles and piles of dead brothers and fathers is a good fuel for that kind of project.
Jinchi
This choice is not Ukraine’s to make. They’re fighting because Russia is attacking them on all fronts on a daily basis. Their attacks on Crimea and Donbas are focused on military targets and forces fighting against them. As long as they’re fighting there anyway, they may as well dream of recapturing them.
Jackie
Any thoughts on this?
And there’s this:
sab
@Jackie: Amnesty International lost my respect as a dependible sensible actor a few years back. Well- intentinned possibly. Worth listening to, not so much.
sab
@sab: The country wanting to annihilate the other needs to be stamped down for a generation or two.
KMG
@rikyrah: I agree, too, but all I can think about now is November. It all hangs on that.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: @Scout211: Just a reminder that we supported those candidates in 2022, and the elections were all close. We helped make this happen.
Ruckus
@Rathskeller:
A couple of points.
Compare the average salary in Russia to the amount the leaders are worth. The leaders are multi billionaires, while the average salary for workers is around $25K/yr. Sure our national politicians don’t do all that bad but the differences actually are rather significant. And we pay our national politicians a bit more to somewhat insure that they have far less reason to screw over the rest of us.
WaterGirl
@Jackie: Multiple thoughts.
Barack Obama: “Now make me do it.”
This assessment may well provide Biden with the ability to cut off those weapons to Israel.
As for your second block quote, I hope Biden tells Bibi to go to hell. Let the ICC do their thing.
Plus, we aren’t even a member of the ICC, right? So what sway could we hold over them?
sab
@sab: Amnesty in Ukraine was my basis point. They lost me on Israel whichever way they are going. Not a reliable actor. They have their point of view, facts be damned or manipulated.
AWJ
This YouTube video persuasively argues that Putin has bought into a literally Larouchite world view in which the Anglo-American banker cabal stole Russia’s empire by manufacturing the revolutions of 1989, went on to manufacture the subsequent revolutions of the 2000s (the so-called “color revolutions” which both Russian and Chinese propaganda are obsessed with) and tried to finish the job and dismember Russia itself by manufacturing the 2011 Russian election protests.
Mr. Bemused Senior
That was my thought too.
Gloria DryGarden
@the pollyanna from hell: please elucidate what your many points are. Pretend I’m in kindergarten, and that I’m very new to how wars and geopolitics work.
I’ve never had much stomach for the history of (white) men and their wars
Gloria DryGarden
@rikyrah:
“
Jess Piper (@piper4missouri) posted at 6:51 AM on Mon, Apr 29, 2024:
The Republican party exists to give wealthy people tax cuts and corporate favors.
They talk non-millionaires into voting for them by creating culture wars that have no impact on their lives. Bait and switch.”
holy shit
very useful pov.
Dang
Jay
@Jinchi:
Georgia. Moldova.
The carve out and holding of territory stalls both EU and NATO membership. Ukraine knows that.
ruZZia then tries to use economic warfare, (oil/gas/pipelines), agitprop and election interference, (including funding/subverting political parties) to try to either get a pro-Putin party elected or as a prominent “opposition”.
As a government they then criminalize dissent and ban NGO’s and other groups that help other nation states become more democratic and less corrupt.
As “opposition” they work on sabotage and creating dissent.
Bupalos
Careful now. I get in no end of trouble here suggesting things like this. The next step on this slippery slope is that you start questioning the use of the word “evil” and start suggesting “wrong” or even “misguided” will do the trick. Or for god’s sake talking about how there are larger forces and explanations.
Bill Arnold
@Jackie:
The ICC has already issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova.
It is easy to make the case that Israel’s war-criming massive bombardment and reduction to rubble of civilian infrastructure in Gaza is functionally similar to Russia’s war-criming bombardment and reduction to rubble of Ukrainian cities (or Grozny, or Aleppo).
For one, the satellite before-and-after photos (and synthetic aperture radar before and after images) are remarkably similar.
The differences in civilian casualty rates are largely due to much better early warning and civil defense in Ukraine (Israel doesn’t even allow/or targets civil defense in Gaza), and to Israel’s policy of family extermination by nighttime bombing of residences that might contain a Hamas militant’s cell phone.
Bupalos
@Martin: Ukrainians notice this.
It’s a subject too dark for the beautiful weather I’m out in. But (from 1st party sources here) the excuses of why missiles are allowed to land in cribs in Odessa but not Jerusalem is….well…
“starting to ring hollow” at least avoids the f-word.
When you pick up the paper and assess the technical legal definitions and so forth… you’re doing a thing. You may think you’re just following what’s on the paper. But that only convinces other people who live their lives on paper. Which no one really does. Which absolutely no Ukrainian is doing.
YY_Sima Qian
Unfortunately, I think Angry Staffer’s missive, while well intentioned, is wishful thinking divorced from reality as it stands today.
The aid package merely allows Ukraine to hold the current front through 2024 & inflict more pain on the attacking Russians. It will not likely provide Ukraine w/ enough equipment & matériels to go on the offensive against deeply entrenched Russian defensive lines in depth. Even if the aid package from the U.S. & Europe are adequate & can magically materialize in Ukraine tomorrow, Ukraine has not mobilized, trained & organized the necessary manpower to go on the offensive. The reality is that Ukraine will be on the defensive through 2024 & possibly 2025.
As for Putin’s motivation, I think G&T said it best. I do think it is important to recognize that it is possible for a theoretical Russian policymaker to be deeply skeptical or even fearful of NATO expansion w/o necessarily harboring the full blown revanchist & imperialist ambitions that Putin & most of the current Russian elite obviously do. Countries that fancy themselves great powers or even regional powers will react negatively to any dynamic or organization that constrain their freedom of action & challenge their hegemony, especially one that is overtly aimed at countering its influence. Just look at the PRC’s reaction to the U.S.’ upgrade of existing alliances in E. Asia, India’s reaction to the PRC making political-economic inroads in S.Asia, & the U.S.’ reaction to the PRC making political-economic inroads into L. America.
In this sense I think the Realists can be right. However, what the Realist & Left Wing advocates of foreign policy restraint miss w/ Ukraine is that Putin is not currently motivated only by cold & rational (to the ROW) calculations. If the aim is to keep Ukraine out of NATO indefinitely, maintaining the pre-Feb. 2022 status quo would have sufficed. Freezing the current conflict in place, barring the occasional skirmish along the Lines of Actual Control, would largely suffice as well. Much of the world, & I suspect including many in Europe, just want the fighting to end & couldn’t care less if the terms are just for Ukraine.
Instead, Putin is consuming masses of men & matériels to conquer the rest of Donetsk, which is clearly a political goal of little strategic significance. Perhaps he still dreams of marching to the Dnipro & Odesa, eventually.
Ruckus
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
I agree with this.
I will add that I doubt that vlad really gives a damn about the lives of his or Ukraine’s populations, he is after power first, money second and admiration, and he likely gives less than a 1/2 a damn about the admiration.
Ruckus
@Gloria DryGarden:
I’d say that’s a good part of it but not the entire story.
At this point in time they at least seem a bit more disorganized because some of their members may not want what we want but can see that what a multi millionaire or billionaire might wants is likely not all that great for them either. I’m not saying that is a big part of their demographic but it’s likely part of it.