RE: Russia and Ukraine
January 24, 2022 at 12:34 pm
(This post was last modified: January 24, 2022 at 1:50 pm by Anomalocaris.)
I think a full on invasion is unlikely because Putin doesn’t have enough troops on the border to either invade or occupy. But I think his strategy is to use the presence of the military to create a sense of unbearable, unresolvable tension in Kiev, make the anti-Russian, pro-nato government seem powerless to resolve the issue, and enable more Russian friendly to claim they have better capacity to resolve the tension.
For Russia, Ukraine joining nato is significantly worse than the USSR placing nuclear missiles in Cuba had been for the US in 1963, because it places Moscow much closer to foreign nuclear blackmail than the distance betweem cuba and Washington DC. Remember what Kennedy was willing to risk yo get the missiles permanently out of Cuba. Putin has reason to risk more to permanent prevent Ukraine from joining a foreign military alliance.
I don’t think Putin is in a weak position at all. I think all the things the west is currently threatening to deprive Russian of in retaliation, he has already written off before he even started to amass his troops. He knows what Ukraine means to the Russia of his vision, and nothing the west can do to him without a nuclear war can compare to that. In his eyes, consequence of taking Ukraine will pass within 10, 15, or 25 years, and even Within those 10, 15,or 25 years it is not as bad as if Ukraine joined nato. The benefit of taking Ukraine will be forever.
With Ukraine, Russia is a great power, with Ukraine in nato, Russia is not even a power, much less great.
an additional consideration for putin is he knows the west fears long term potential of china much more than long term potential of russia. so he probably judged, correctly in my opinion, that any western threat against russia is hollow because the west can not afford to keep driving russia towards china. Without russia, china will not reach the point of parity with the anglo-saxon alliance of US, UK and Australia in at least 15-20 years, maybe never. this is why europe, and japan is picking the US side.
A russo-chinese alliance, on the other hand, is close to parity now and will probably achieve more or less ful parity in 10 years. if russian and china begin to form a clear block, the rest of the world will begin to hedge their bets and start peeling away from a US centered alliance.
For Russia, Ukraine joining nato is significantly worse than the USSR placing nuclear missiles in Cuba had been for the US in 1963, because it places Moscow much closer to foreign nuclear blackmail than the distance betweem cuba and Washington DC. Remember what Kennedy was willing to risk yo get the missiles permanently out of Cuba. Putin has reason to risk more to permanent prevent Ukraine from joining a foreign military alliance.
I don’t think Putin is in a weak position at all. I think all the things the west is currently threatening to deprive Russian of in retaliation, he has already written off before he even started to amass his troops. He knows what Ukraine means to the Russia of his vision, and nothing the west can do to him without a nuclear war can compare to that. In his eyes, consequence of taking Ukraine will pass within 10, 15, or 25 years, and even Within those 10, 15,or 25 years it is not as bad as if Ukraine joined nato. The benefit of taking Ukraine will be forever.
With Ukraine, Russia is a great power, with Ukraine in nato, Russia is not even a power, much less great.
an additional consideration for putin is he knows the west fears long term potential of china much more than long term potential of russia. so he probably judged, correctly in my opinion, that any western threat against russia is hollow because the west can not afford to keep driving russia towards china. Without russia, china will not reach the point of parity with the anglo-saxon alliance of US, UK and Australia in at least 15-20 years, maybe never. this is why europe, and japan is picking the US side.
A russo-chinese alliance, on the other hand, is close to parity now and will probably achieve more or less ful parity in 10 years. if russian and china begin to form a clear block, the rest of the world will begin to hedge their bets and start peeling away from a US centered alliance.
