Ukraine-Russia War Take 2
Here is what the preliminary take on the Ukraine thread disappearing is:
The site was hit with a massive spam attack where hundreds of spam threads were created. In the case where, for example, I see a single spam thread and delete it, that is called a soft delete, and mods can still see them but forum members cannot. Those deletion can be undone.
When a massive attack hits with hundreds of threads, an admin uses a different procedure where the hundreds of spam threads are merged and then hard deleted, where the threads are gone, and no note is left behind. As I have mentioned with my own experience of just soft deleting a large number of posts, sometimes a post or thread gets checked or merged accidentally and is deleted by mistake. Dealing with hundreds of spam threads takes a sledgehammer, not a scalpel.
It appears that our Ukraine thread may have gotten caught up in that recent net of spam threads. If so, it is likely gone for good. I cant say this for sure, and am awaiting comments from admins on this issue. Yes, this sucks. And hopefully there was some other software glitch that caused the disappearance, and we may recover it in the future.
But in the meantime, I have created this new Ukraine-Russia War thread to enable the conversation to continue. Obviously continuity with earlier discussions will be lost. There is no way around that. So as best as possible, let's pick up the conversation with recent events and go from there.
If you have any questions about this, please post them in the mod thread, not here. Let's keep this thread going with posts about the war, not the disappearance of the old thread.
Thanks.
Sure, use whatever word you think fits, "force" might be too strong.
alot of people are willing to risk their lives for a lot of money without knowing all the risk it is what it is who are you to judge that decision. life is overated
Ukraine has found its favored middleman to help end the war with Russia: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
As part of a blossoming diplomatic relationship, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met Modi on Monday evening in New York, during which the two leaders and their entourages discussed the pathway to a peace deal.
A high-ranking Ukrainian official, granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive subject, confirmed that India was Kyiv’s big hope to reach a peace pact it can live with.
It is a non-zero probability now. However, the odds of a nuclear war would probably increase, if nothing else because of the instability you would be creating. By how much? Nobody knows. Firstly because it is uncharted territory, secondly because we know very little about the inner political machinations of Russia.
We don't even have an idea who would take up the mantle after Putin in a peaceful shift of power, so we certainly don't know how would do so should he die a violent death or be assassinated.
If we're spitballing questionable hypothetical scenarios, then I would say that an assassination of Putin would greatly increase the odds of a military coup. Both because it would serve as a convenient excuse for those willing to grab power in that manner, but probably also because there would be plenty of high-ranking officers wanting to stop a collapse of the federation or potential civil war.
What is almost guaranteed to not happen is the rise of a reformer, because they are either killed, jailed or in exile without an operation on the ground. I'd say that outside a coup, the most likely rise to power would be someone from the ultra-nationalists, it doesn't take a genius to see how people would rally to their cause in this hypothetical. Ultra-nationalists also tolerate Putin, because he makes a lot of concessions to their causes (the invasion of Ukraine is one). With him gone, there would be no need for them to hold back.
Basically, nobody sane from the west is going to touch Putin. If anything, we'll wish him a peaceful retreat from power and a completely unremarkable death. Not because he deserves it, but because the idea of a collapsing and uncertain Russia with 6000 nukes in play is nightmare fuel.
Vladimir Putin has escalated his nuclear rhetoric, telling a group of senior officials that Russia would consider using nuclear weapons if it was attacked by any state with conventional weapons.
His remarks on Wednesday came during a meeting with Russia’s powerful security council where he also announced changes to the country’s nuclear doctrine.
The comments marked Russia’s strongest warning yet to the west against allowing Ukraine to launch deep strikes into Russian territory using long-range western missiles.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has been asking for months for permission to use British Storm Shadow missiles and US-made Atacms missiles to hit targets deeper inside Russia.
Putin said that Russia would consider using nuclear weapons if Moscow received “reliable information” about the start of a massive launch of missiles, aircraft or drones against it.
Putin also warned that a nuclear power supporting another country’s attack on Russia would be considered a participant in aggression, issuing a thinly veiled threat to the west as foreign leaders continue to mull whether to allow Ukraine to use long-range weapons.
Very good listen, especially for anyone doubting the severity of Russian war crimes.
It is a non-zero probability now. However, the odds of a nuclear war would probably increase, if nothing else because of the instability you would be creating. By how much? Nobody knows. Firstly because it is uncharted territory, secondly because we know very little about the inner political machinations of Russia.
We don't even have an idea who would take up the mantle after Putin in a peaceful shift of power, so we certainly don't know
absent Putin, Russia goes into internal chaos because conflicting interests won't have a balancing force.
yes there are people crazier than Putin in Russia but they don't control the oligarchs and the urban upper middle class in general, and they don't agree even among themselves about details.
ofc the idea wouldn't be that a "reformer" comes if Putin is killed. the idea would be Russia ends up ideally in civil war (which we would foment) and then we enter and take it all, militarily occupy it, take all nuclear weapons and the people that can make more away and so on.
if your hope for the longer term is for Russia to "normalize" endogenously I think you are mistaken.
Russian demography is going down a cliff fast and their massive natural resources are going to be worth much less decades from now.
When they will perceive their utter historical irrelevance is approaching they won't go gentle into that good night.
What's happening with the imperialistic approach of late is linked to that a lot already and the direction of decline (in relative importance worldwide at least) is irreversible, things can only get worse from here.
we had a collapsed Russia with thousands of nuclear weapons 30-35 years ago btw.
rather than being nightmare fuel for the west, the 90s was one of the golden periods for the west
The West is not interested in fomenting civil War in Russia and is definitely not going to swoop in and take over the country.
Russia will need to change itself from within. Or not, as long as they leave the rest of the world alone.
Trump Suggests Giving Vladimir Putin Whatever He Wants
If Ukraine were to suddenly surrender to Russia, everything would be “much better,” at least according to Donald Trump.
During an afternoon press conference Wednesday, the Republican presidential nominee urged the Eastern European nation to submit to the foreign power, claiming that any deal, no matter how dismal for Ukraine’s freedom, would have been better than the current state of affairs.
“Ukraine is gone. It’s not Ukraine anymore. You can never replace those cities and towns, and you can never replace the dead people, so many dead people,” Trump said. “Any deal, even the worst deal, would have been better than what we have right now.
“If they made a bad deal, it would have been much better, they would have given up a little bit,” he continued. “And everybody would be living, and every building would be built, and every tower would be aging for another 2,000 years.”
my problem in Europe is that a lot of people on the left that otherwise wholly disagree with Trump on many issues, actually have the same identical take you report here on Ukraine.
"just stop the war with a deal who cares which government notionally controls various parts of Ukraine" is VERY common in Europe among the left.
this is one of the many topics where the democrats being to the right of European leftists make it a lot better for the west.
that said I think Trump is right about "there is no come back for Ukraine", even if we somehow manage to get back stolen territory.
when a huge portion of your 0-50 population has left, with little if any intention to return (because they are now in far better countries) you are basically done, even if somehow we could find the money to rebuild (which wouldn't be an easy task)
Surreal.
my problem in Europe is that a lot of people on the left that otherwise wholly disagree with Trump on many issues, actually have the same identical take you report here on Ukraine.
"just stop the war with a deal who cares which government notionally controls various parts of Ukraine" is VERY common in Europe among the left.
this is one of the many topics where the democrats being to the right of European leftists make it a lot better for the
In my view not caring how this conflict plays out is actually more right-wing than wanting to support Ukraine. I never understood how isolationism ever became the left-wing policy.
In my view not caring how this conflict plays out is actually more right-wing than wanting to support Ukraine. I never understood how isolationism ever became the left-wing policy.
It's like defund the police, somebody convinced them you can do without war, just give up all fighting and you solve the problem of war.
I blame Gandhi
Georgia’s ruling party wants to outlaw the opposition
This conflict is existential to Russia,but not to the West,so yankee,go home!If it comes(i hope not) to the point of "Arise, Great Country!",there will be no Ukraine ,i repeat yankee,go home before its to late.
The West is not interested in fomenting civil War in Russia and is definitely not going to swoop in and take over the country.
I don't know why the idea of Russia collapse post-Putin is so popular on these forums. No legitimate Russian scholars think there's much of a chance this will happen. Politically, economically it's not realistic. There's no strong desire for it. And American Russia experts such as Thomas Graham also dismiss at unrealistic. The only ones pushing this are internet posters and Putin/Kremlin who has created an image of himself as the the savior from a second Time of Troubles. There was a very good discussion on this topic on Meduza several months ago.
I don't know why the idea of Russia collapse post-Putin is so popular on these forums. No legitimate Russian scholars think there's much of a chance this will happen. Politically, economically it's not realistic. There's no strong desire for it. And American Russia experts such as Thomas Graham also dismiss at unrealistic. The only ones pushing this are internet posters and Putin/Kremlin who has created an image of himself as the the savior
my take is that there would be chaos, not necessarily collapse
I don't know why the idea of Russia collapse post-Putin is so popular on these forums. No legitimate Russian scholars think there's much of a chance this will happen.
Do you mean specifically Putin being removed somehow by the West, or that most experts think that no matter how Putin is removed it's unlikely?
I personally think the most dangerous scenario is Putin's sudden death, whether it's from health issues or whatever. I thought that Graham agreed.
This conflict is existential to Russia,but not to the West,so yankee,go home!If it comes(i hope not) to the point of "Arise, Great Country!",there will be no Ukraine ,i repeat yankee,go home before its to late.
Never heard of an existential conflict where the person claiming that the conflict is existential is annexing half of another country. It’d take a large amount of evidence for me to overcome my prior probabilities on that.
Bro, scroll up a few threads and you will find one such conflict...
Never heard of an existential conflict where the person claiming that the conflict is existential is annexing half of another country. It’d take a large amount of evidence for me to overcome my prior probabilities on that.
There is only one existential threat to Russia, and that it is its current leadership, because it might ultimately weaken Russia internally to the point of the collapse of the federation, civil war or a coup.
The fact that Russia's borders are barely defend because its forces are concentrated along key points inside Ukraine or in reserve for those points shows anyone with more than one functioning brain-cell that there is no external existential threat to Russia. While Russia's war has left it unable to defend its citizens in border regions, a couple of Ukrainian brigades are not going to reach Moscow and will never pose an existential threat to the country itself.
Ignoring squabbles over rocks and tiny islands, About the only country that would like to help itself to some Russian regions if given the chance is China, and Russia's current policy towards China is to prostrate itself as much as possible.
