re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

In my opinion, this is the kind of discussion this thread could use more of. It's well reasoned, articulate and avoids childish name-calling (I've been guilty of this with some of the trolls)

I might not agree with everything you say (in this case I do agree), but I respect your opinion and appreciate your sharing it.

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There were a two main factors.

1. Ambiguity on the status of Ukraine when it comes to possible NATO membership. This was heightened by the fact so many former Warsaw Pact member were admitted to NATO.

I’m not saying it was bad or wrong to allow those countries, or even Ukraine, join NATO. All I’m saying, from the Russian point of view this was seen as a massive threat. We in the west know there would never be a NATO invasion of Russia. The Russians though have always feared this.

As Ukraine grew its ties to the west, Russian paranoia only grew. This was noted in the West, but largely ignored.

2. Nordstream 2. The president removing objections to this pipeline allowed Russia to bypass Ukraine in supplying natural gas to the lucrative European market. And thanks to decades of idiotic energy policies in Europe, Europe has become dependent on Russian energy. Russia, incorrectly mind you, assumed this dependence would keep Europe on the sidelines.

You can also add in the perceived weakness in the US. The fact is our president is not respected as a strong, decisive leader. The disaster that was the Afghan withdrawal, again from the Russian point of view, showed the US has no stomach for foreign wars. Furthermore, the US is widely viewed as a fractured county by most of the world, especially Russia. We’re more divided than we’ve been since the 1860s.

So, again from the Russian point of view, they saw years of NATO expansion, including two invasions of independent countries (Iraq & Afghanistan), and this expansion looked to them possibly reaching not only their doorstep, but areas they have viewed as, if not outright Russian, at least under their sphere of influence going back centuries. Along with this threat they saw, from their point of view a window of opportunity, thanks to perceived weakness in the US and dependance of European Russian energy, to move now to address the situation.

None of this is to justify Russia in any way. Let me state clearly, Russia had no right to invade Ukraine. I am only explaining their thinking.

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All I’m saying, from the Russian point of view this was seen as a massive threat. We in the west know there would never be a NATO invasion of Russia. The Russians though have always feared this.

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But it was those Warsaw Pact countries who strove to join Western-led organizations, with the process starting before the actual fall of the USSR. In other words, those former Warsaw Pact nations were so determined to never be in Russia's sphere of influence ever again that they changed the entire institutional organization of their governments, military, and economy, which took nearly a decade and a serious commitment over several different governments.

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You can also add in the perceived weakness in the US. The fact is our president is not respected as a strong, decisive leader. The disaster that was the Afghan withdrawal, again from the Russian point of view, showed the US has no stomach for foreign wars. Furthermore, the US is widely viewed as a fractured county by most of the world, especially Russia. We’re more divided than we’ve been since the 1860s.

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Brother, we had more instances of civil unrest in 111 instances of mass civil unrest in the 1960s alone. That is more than the next 40 years combined. This whole narrative is nonsensical. And I haven't gotten the impression that other countries think the US is fractured, as all nation-states have incidences of civil unrest, none of which are used as evidence of fracturing except when referring to the US. If Russian FP is based on who the president is, and not the fact that in practice, military concerns are always taken seriously regardless of the actual make-up of Congress and who the President is, then I'd suggest the Russians are naïve in addition to being stupid.

I've read Russian viewpoints for quite a while, and I don't see this logic repeated very often. I see far more interest in controlling West Asia, disrupting the Amero-Atlantic alliance, developing partnerships with other rogue nations to circumvent the effect of sanctions than I read viewpoints like this.

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Thank you. I try to bring a logical perspective to this discussion. This war seems to inflame passions on both sides and people lose sight of logic and facts in favor of emotion.

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I hear you, but I kind of shutdown when I read stuff like this -

"You can also add in the perceived weakness in the US. The fact is our president is not respected as a strong, decisive leader. The disaster that was the Afghan withdrawal, again from the Russian point of view, showed the US has no stomach for foreign wars. Furthermore, the US is widely viewed as a fractured county by most of the world, especially Russia. We’re more divided than we’ve been since the 1860s."

It's neither logical or factual.

I disagree Slim.

We may not be as fractured as we were in the Vietnam era, I don't know because I was just a kid back in those days and wasn't politically aware, but I think there is ample evidence of extreme polarization in our country today. The polarization today is from completely different reasons than it was in 60' and 70's.

I do believe that the sloppy exit from Afghanistan was part of Putins calculus in deciding to invade Ukraine. We appeared weak and uncoordinated on the world stage.

ETA: Militarily, we are strong. Russia is putting tanks from 1960's on the battlefield while we could give Ukraine weaponized lasers if we wanted to.

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There were a two main factors.

1. Ambiguity on the status of Ukraine when it comes to possible NATO membership. This was heightened by the fact so many former Warsaw Pact member were admitted to NATO.

I’m not saying it was bad or wrong to allow those countries, or even Ukraine, join NATO. All I’m saying, from the Russian point of view this was seen as a massive threat. We in the west know there would never be a NATO invasion of Russia. The Russians though have always feared this.

As Ukraine grew its ties to the west, Russian paranoia only grew. This was noted in the West, but largely ignored.

2. Nordstream 2. The president removing objections to this pipeline allowed Russia to bypass Ukraine in supplying natural gas to the lucrative European market. And thanks to decades of idiotic energy policies in Europe, Europe has become dependent on Russian energy. Russia, incorrectly mind you, assumed this dependence would keep Europe on the sidelines.

You can also add in the perceived weakness in the US. The fact is our president is not respected as a strong, decisive leader. The disaster that was the Afghan withdrawal, again from the Russian point of view, showed the US has no stomach for foreign wars. Furthermore, the US is widely viewed as a fractured county by most of the world, especially Russia. We’re more divided than we’ve been since the 1860s.

So, again from the Russian point of view, they saw years of NATO expansion, including two invasions of independent countries (Iraq & Afghanistan), and this expansion looked to them possibly reaching not only their doorstep, but areas they have viewed as, if not outright Russian, at least under their sphere of influence going back centuries. Along with this threat they saw, from their point of view a window of opportunity, thanks to perceived weakness in the US and dependance of European Russian energy, to move now to address the situation.

None of this is to justify Russia in any way. Let me state clearly, Russia had no right to invade Ukraine. I am only explaining their thinking.

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Great, insightful post.

Update on the Kherson front from Rybar
https://t.me/rybar/39866

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?????????? Battle for Kherson: the situation in the Andreevsky and Berislavsky areas
as of 17.00 October 7, 2022

??In the morning, the Ukrainian consolidated grouping of 128th brigade, 60th brigade and the tank unit of 17th brigade have been attacking Russian positions from the area of ??the village of Dudchany.

??Fire support for the ground forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is provided by artillery crews from the vicinity of Petropavlovka. Target designation is provided by the Bayraktar UAV.

??At the same time, mobile groups of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are trying to break through the fields at the Pyatikhatka-Sukhanovo line, and formations of the 57th Specialized Rifle Brigade are attacking the positions of the RF Armed Forces south of Davydov Brod.

??Russian artillery and aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces strike at the areas of concentration of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, preventing them from gaining a foothold on the front line.

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Also, people like Dugin are unbelievably clear about what they want the geopolitical goals of Russia to be. From his 2015 book, Last War of the World-Island: The Geopolitics of Contemporary Russia, Dugin says,

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The Russian Federation and the Geopolitical Map of the World After ?xing the well-de?ned geopolitical identity of contemporary Russia, we can move to the next stage. Taking into account such a geopolitical analysis, we can precisely determine the place of the contemporary Russian Federation on the geopolitical map of the world.
Russian society displays vividly expressed tellurocratic traits. Without hesitation, we should associate the Russian Federation, too, with a government of the land-based type, and contemporary Russian society with a mainly holistic society.

The consequences of this geopolitical identification are global in scale. On its basis, we can make a series of deductions, which must lie at the basis of a consistent and fully-fledged Russian geopolitics of the future. Russia’s geopolitical identity, being land-based and tellurocratic, demands strengthening, deepening, acknowledgement, and development. e substantial side of the policy of a?rming political sovereignty, declared in the early 2000s by the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, consists in precisely this.

Russia’s political sovereignty is imbued with a much deeper significance: it is the realization of the strategic project for the upkeep of the political-administrative unity of the Heartland and the (re)creation of the conditions necessary for Russia to act as the tellurocratic pole on a global scale. In strengthening Russia’s sovereignty, we strengthen one of the columns of the world’s geopolitical architecture; we carry out an operation, much greater in scale than a project of domestic policy concerning only our immediate neighbors, in the best case. Geopolitically, the fact that Russia is the Heartland makes its sovereignty a planetary problem. All the powers and states in the world that possess tellurocratic properties depend on whether Russia will cope with this historic challenge and be able to preserve and strengthen its sovereignty.

Beyond any ideological preferences, Russia is doomed to conflict with the civilization of the Sea, with thalassocracy, embodied today in the USA and the unipolar America-centric world order. Geopolitical dualism has nothing in common with the ideological or economic peculiarities of this or that country. A global geopolitical conflict unfolded between the Russian Empire and the British monarchy, then between the socialist camp and the capitalist camp. Today, during the age of the democratic republican arrangement, the same conflict is unfolding between democratic Russia and the bloc of the democratic countries of NATO treading upon it. Geopolitical regularities lie deeper than political ideological contradictions or similarities.

The discovery of this principal conflict does not automatically mean war or a direct strategic conflict. Conflict can be understood in di?erent ways. From the position of realism in international relations, we are talking about a conflict of interests which leads to war only when one of the sides is su?ciently convinced of the weakness of the other, or when an elite is put at the head of either state that puts national interests above rational calculation. The conflict can also develop peacefully, through a system of a general strategic, economic, technological, and diplomatic balance. Occasionally it can even soften into rivalry and competition, although a forceful resolution can never be consciously ruled out.

In such a situation the question of geopolitical security is foremost, and without it no other factors — modernization, an increase in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or the standard of living, and so forth— have independent significance. What is the point of our creating a developed economy if we will lose our geopolitical independence? is is not “bellicose,” but a healthy rational analysis in a realist spirit; this is geopolitical realism.

Geopolitically, Russia is something more than the Russian Federation in its current administrative borders. The Eurasian civilization, established around the Heartland with its core in the Russian narod, is much broader than contemporary Russia. To some degree, practically all the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) belong to it. Onto this sociological peculiarity, a strategic factor is superimposed: to guarantee its territorial security, Russia must take military control over the center of the zones attached to it, in the south and the west, and in the sphere of the northern Arctic Ocean. Moreover, if we consider Russia — a planetary tellurocratic pole, then it becomes apparent that its direct interests extend throughout the Earth and touch all the continents, seas, and oceans. Hence, it becomes necessary to elaborate a global geopolitical strategy for Russia, describing in detail the specific interests relating to each country and each region.

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Here Dugin is quite direct. He believes in The Heartland Theory, which places emphasis on the West Asian corridor as the center of civilization and is very forthright with what he says. There is no talk of 'weakness' or even real reference to the capability of the US, because regardless of that capability, Russia has to stand against the US-led world order. This is the viewpoint of Russian FP elite, and it has been their viewpoint for two centuries. They aren't making calculations based on who is the US President. They are making calculations based on a very narrow reading of history, which doesn't account for the existence of The New World at all, which throws a massive wrench into notions of 'The Heartland Theory.'

In geopolitics, you come across these sorts of documents all the time, where governments and officials speak plainly about what they intend. Russia's strategic plan for 2035 was delayed until 2021, after Zelensky signed the Ukrainian plan to 'de-occupy' Crimea, and people still suggest that it matters who the US president is. The Russian viewpoint was formed by events that were very early in the US's history, and the only thing they see is a rival, regardless of who the president is.

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Now, none of this I say excuses Russia from their invasion. They made the choice to launch this war. They are the aggressor here. But remember, in war there’s always two points of view, yours and the enemy. When Japan attacked the US in December 1941, they did so because, from their point of view, they had no other choice. I’m not saying they were justified, Jair that this was their point of view.

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Well sure nearly every state action, no matter how I’ll advised, is still advised.

I think what is frustrating to a lot of people in this thread is that Russia has offered 5 or 6 different public justifications in an attempt to find a narrative that fits domestically and abroad, and certain posters (not you) throw those around as though they are anything other than shite on a wall.

Russian needs to try different justifications because it’s hard to say the quiet part out loud in 2022 - Russia is trying to enrich itself by adding land, resources and people into its borders by sword and force of sword.

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We may not be as fractured as we were in the Vietnam era, I don't know because I was just a kid back in those days and wasn't politically aware, but I think there is ample evidence of extreme polarization in our country today. The polarization today is from completely different reasons than it was in 60' and 70's.

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I really don't buy this argument about fracturing. Firstly, state services still function extremely well. Second, generally, especially compared to the rest of the world, businesses run smoothly. Thirdly, in actual real-life I barely encounter any instances of polarization. I see that viewpoint repeated on social media, which, by giving everyone a voice in a distinct way, gives the impression of polarization precisely because there is no large unity to the viewpoints. Every viewpoint is nuanced and colored by the individual. Lastly, the US has been at the forefront of technological adoption, and each technological adoption tends to change how we interact with media, as media is the way humans now interact with the world at large. But each technological adoption pushes back the development of social norms, so much so that there is little time for the culture to coalesce into something that is coherent, and importantly, describable to other people. In the moment, it will always feel chaotic to people. But are things tangibly fracturing? I have yet to see evidence that isn't repetition of one's own perceptions.

Based Belgium blocks proposed EU embargo on Russian diamonds. LINK