Ukraine (and Russia)

[yovargas]

We're not an Army for Hire.

But again no one is talking about the U.S. going to war, or sending in troops, or taking any other military action. I wish people would understand that. There are other ways for the U.S. to exert influence.

Eh, I shoulda kept my mouth shut cuz, as I've said, I really have no idea what I'm talking about.

[Passdagas the Brown]

But how much fun is a quiet yovargas?

[Frelga]

PtB, I was addressing the great world in general. Which includes you by default, even though I am aware that you do not subscribe to the meme.

yov, a silent hippo is no fun, and besides, how else are you gonna learn?

[yovargas]

Gonna learn to keep my mouth shut, ya mean?
No, really, sometimes it's better to listen than to speak.....

[Voronwë the Faithful]

yov, you weren't the first person to raise that possibility in this thread. You only happened to be latest.

[River]

If you're going to run with the "it used to be ours" argument you then have to address why the Russian claim to Crimea and Ukraine supercedes that of all the other dead empires that held those regions before Russia took it.

I get why those banging the Greater Russia drum want Crimea and slobber about Ukraine. I don't think their arguments are valid but they've been made before in other conflicts and they'll be made again in future ones. I don't think they should have their way. History has shown us why it's a bad idea to let leaders who want to rebuild a Greater <Nation> have their way.

Hopefully Germany will come around to the long view here.

[Passdagas the Brown]

Recent reports are that after repeated unsuccessful talks between Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin, Merkel is ready to throw her support in for broader sanctions against Russia. The numbers are that Russia's economy is dependent on Germany for some 15% of its output, while Germany is dependent on Russia for about 1%. So while Germany and the EU may get hurt a little by broader economic sanctions, Russia will get hurt a lot. The word on the ground is that the Russian business and finance sectors are very alarmed, and placing pressure on Putin to back down. We will see if that translates into Putin feeling politically vulnerable, which in the short-term at least, I doubt.

ETA: EU sanctions are on the way: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/ ... QJ20140312

This is a very big deal, though I suspect a lot more will need to happen before Putin backs down.

[Passdagas the Brown]

The Crimean Parliament has voted to join the Russian Federation. It will hold a referendum on March 16th.

I think this is a good resolution. The Russians don't want to lose the Crimea, the Crimeans feel closer to Russia than the rest of Ukraine. But lines on a map have a weird reverence.

Predictably Obama is not happy with this. There are too many people in the US government who do not like that the Cold War ended.

Obama warns on Crimea, orders sanctions over Russian moves in Ukraine

He's basically warning that he'll veto their quitting Ukraine.

Cen,

Still think it's a "good resolution" now that the referendum will not even include an option for NOT joining Russia? Is this a democratic or "legitimate" process, from your perspective?

-PtB

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Just for the sake of accuracy, that has been known since March 6, when the Supreme Council of Crimea changed the date of the referendum to March 16 (from March 30 (after it had previously been moved up from May 25), and changed the language of the choices. It just that the true meaning of the new language is starting to filter into news sources like the Huff Post now.

[Cenedril_Gildinaur]

And I cannot understand why you would be more in favor of Russian influence in Eastern Europe than EU/NATO/US influence. As a true libertarian, one would think that Putin's authoritarian direction would be worrying to you.

I don't think he's saying he has that preference, just that his preference should have no bearing on the decisions of foreign countries and neither should anyone else's outside of those directly involved and affected. A point I'm generally inclined to agree with unless there are some very blatant atrocities going down.

Yes. Very much.

this is not the first time someone has tried the "why would a libertarian support Putin?" argument on me. Fortunately, back when I wrote about the Crips and the Bloods, I already refuted that. My refusal to take a stand against one of the two violent street gangs does not make me a supporter of said street gang.

PtB, if we're not talking about going to war, then what is the point of these several pages of discussion? The underlying current of the whole thing is "what is the US going to do about it?" My proposition, which you disagree with, is "do nothing." Yet the opposite of "do nothing" is "do something", and that means war. Russia isn't going to idly sit there and take it if we start strafing them with drones the way we do so many tiny Arab countries. Russia won't sit there and take it if we enact sanctions. They have the means and the will necessary to stand up to either of those usual methods.

If we're not talking about going to war, what are we talking about? Issuing a strongly worded condemnation and nothing more. Which is basically my position of do nothing but with some phony moral dressing on it.

The choices are "do nothing" and "do something" and if you disagree with me when I say "do nothing" then instead of falsely accusing me of supporting Putin then elaborate on "do something."

[Frelga]

It's the economy...

Putin's Ukraine actions may knock Russia's central bank off course

MOSCOW, March 12 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin's engagement in Ukraine threatens to divert Russia's central bank from its goals of inflation-targeting and freeing up the rouble currency, undermining the credibility it has built up.

The central bank has been operating in emergency mode since Putin's declaration of his right to invade Ukraine and his implicit support for Crimea's plans to join Russia.

Worried investors have sold the rouble and moved money abroad, forcing the central bank to raise interest rates to stem capital flight and spend $15 billion defend the currency, a distraction from fighting inflation.

[Passdagas the Brown]

Cen,

The underlying current of the whole thing is "what is the US going to do about it?" My proposition, which you disagree with, is "do nothing." Yet the opposite of "do nothing" is "do something", and that means war.

I'm trying to be civil, but when you completely ignore nearly everything I and others have been saying in this thread, it is hard to stay calm. The sentence above betrays a complete blindness to the input of other people.

Do something does not mean "war." As I and others have indicated, do something, in this case, primarily means putting economic and political pressure on Russia. This entails the US, the EU, and other willing nations doing the following:

1. Imposing targeted economic sanctions against specific Russian individuals that have directly or indirectly participated in the occupation of Crimea
2. Imposing broader economic sanctions against Russia, including sanctions prohibiting business exchanges with the Russian gas industry
3. Imposing political sanctions on Russian officials, such as the institution of travel bans, visa restrictions and the expulsion of diplomats
4. Expelling Russia from the G8
5. Providing economic, political and "military hardware and logistical" support to the government of Ukraine
6. Expediting the exportation of cheap fuel to Ukraine as a means of reducing its dependence on Russian gas

These are just a small sliver of the options on the table, and they amount to far more than "strongly worded" condemnations, and fall far short of "war."

And as I have repeated a number of times already, the Russian business class is starting to get very, very nervous - especially now that Germany is about to throw its weight behind broader economic sanctions. These responses by the US, EU and others could cripple Russian industry for a long time. If the fear of this happening gets more palpable, Putin could quickly start paying for it politically.

Today's Russia is not the isolated behemoth of the Soviet days. It is deeply connected to the global market, and especially connected to the EU market.

In short, I'm happy to engage your perspective on this issue. But if you're not going to pay attention to anything anyone is saying, what's the point?

[Cenedril_Gildinaur]

Do something does not mean "war." As I and others have indicated, do something, in this case, primarily means putting economic and political pressure on Russia. This entails the US, the EU, and other willing nations doing the following:

1. Imposing targeted economic sanctions against specific Russian individuals that have directly or indirectly participated in the occupation of Crimea
2. Imposing broader economic sanctions against Russia, including sanctions prohibiting business exchanges with the Russian gas industry
3. Imposing political sanctions on Russian officials, such as the institution of travel bans, visa restrictions and the expulsion of diplomats
4. Expelling Russia from the G8
5. Providing economic, political and "military hardware and logistical" support to the government of Ukraine
6. Expediting the exportation of cheap fuel to Ukraine as a means of reducing its dependence on Russian gas

Uh, 1, 2. and 5 do mean war. This isn't Tinynation we're talking about, whose only recourse if sanction are imposed is to hope to find a way to cheat and get around them. Russia is capable of taking counter-measures. And if those in the US government were honest they'd admit that if another country were to do to the US what we do too them we'd consider it an act of war.

Fortunately most countries are too small for such activity to have an impact. Not Russia. In this case we're like the high school kid at the elementary school playground saying "I've successfully beaten up these elementary school kids, that proves I'm tough, I'll go take on that high school kid over there."

These are just a small sliver of the options on the table, and they amount to far more than "strongly worded" condemnations, and fall far short of "war."

Three and six amount to something between a strongly worded condemnation and war.

And as I have repeated a number of times already, the Russian business class is starting to get very, very nervous - especially now that Germany is about to throw its weight behind broader economic sanctions. These responses by the US, EU and others could cripple Russian industry for a long time. If the fear of this happening gets more palpable, Putin could quickly start paying for it politically.

And Putin has already stated that he is ready for economic counter-measures against the US. And our position isn't nearly as strong as it was a few decades ago if some country big enough to actually count enacts economic counter measures. The US enacts economic measures, Russia enacts economic counter-measures, the US declares those counter-measures to be an act of war, the US public eats it up and says Russia was the first to engage in economic warfare. And anyone who points out the initial measures that Russia responded to is accused of "parroting Putin's propaganda."

Today's Russia is not the isolated behemoth of the Soviet days. It is deeply connected to the global market, and especially connected to the EU market.

Which is why economic warfare of the sort you propose will be very bad for the US. And has a distinct change of leading to a shooting war.

[Passdagas the Brown]

Russia is far more dependent on the EU and US markets than we are dependent on Russia (I mentioned earlier that roughly 1% of Germany's economy is Russia-dependent, while about 15% of Russia's is Germany-dependent). The truth is that while there will be a little bit of pain in the EU, as a result of gas flows stopping, and a tiny amount of pain in the US, it will be nothing compared to the enormous economic pain Russia will feel.

So no, I don't think the US, EU and other willing nations imposing economic and political sanctions constitutes "war." It is certainly hostility, but not war.

Russia is a very weak country, economically. And it's essentially a petro-state. It'll hurt a lot more than we do in this crisis. My guess is that after another show of force in eastern Ukraine (which we are seeing the beginnings of today) Putin will start to feel the economic pressure (and the cries of protest from Russian companies), and eventually draw down - out of Crimea.

But if we go your route and do nothing, Russia will stay where it is, and potentially occupy the rest of eastern Ukraine. Which would be a nightmare - not least for the Tatars: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/eur ... d=z2#item0

And the new Ukraine government would likely not survive, and Russia would start intervening deeply in the domestic politics of the country. Essentially, we would be letting Ukraine slide away from democracy and into something more akin to Belarus. Emboldened, Putin would then throw his weight around the Caucuses and Central Asia indiscriminately, quashing any movements towards greater autonomy from Russia. Sorry, but that's not an acceptable result.

And has a distinct change of leading to a shooting war.

There is no such distinct chance, Cen. How long did the Cold War last without it devolving into a shooting war between the US and the USSR? I suppose I'm having difficulty understanding what you're so worried about. There is little-to-no chance that this will escalate into a physical conflict between Russian and "western" forces. That's too unacceptable for both sides, and Russia is not strong enough (or stupid enough) to precipitate something like that. This will be a battle fought with economic and political weapons. In other words, this will be a battle of hard diplomacy, not war.

And please, quit it with the "we're eating up western propaganda" schtick. I don't read propaganda, and don't appreciate being told that I do.

[Cenedril_Gildinaur]

Now you're conflating "dependent on the EU" with "dependent on the EU and the US".

Yes, engaging in economic warfare has a distinct potential to develop into a hot shooting war. The problem with comparing it to the cold war is that the when using economic sanctions, the USA and the USSR generally didn't confront each other directly on that front. They both used their economic might to manipulate the little countries that were the actual battle grounds. Both sides would pour aid into their preferred side and enact sanctions on their non-preferred side. The US imposing a sanction on Cuba is very different from the US imposing a sanction on the USSR.

So when Russia takes economic counter measures, and we discover just how weak the USA really is, economically, and how badly Russia is hurting the USA, then what? Admit we're not up to the challenge and back down? Not likely. This would just cause the hawks, Hillary and McCain and the like, to promote escalation.

I think you've got an out-dated view of the US in terms of economic might. The US is fragile right now, and has been so since about 2002 when Bush Jr. started squandering the chance for repairing the economy by invading Iraq and Afghanistan instead.

So you're worried that Putin would "then throw his weight around the Caucuses and Central Asia indiscriminately". Doesn't that mean you're worried that Putin would act like the US does? That's the underlying problem.

I know that it is not true that economic sanctions are not considered an act of war when we do it but if Russia retaliates with their own economic counter-measures we will see just how quickly economic sanctions are considered to be acts of war, and the US is far more vulnerable than most people imagine.

[Passdagas the Brown]

Unbelievably excellent coverage in Crimea and eastern Ukraine by VICE News. Eleven video dispatches that cut right through the propaganda (helped significantly by an intelligent Russian and Ukrainian-speaking journalist):

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL ... wbOCDO472B

All of them are worth watching. And it is, IMO, impossible to watch these and come to the conclusion that Crimea is following its democratic wish to join Russia. This is a neo-Soviet invasion, plain and simple.

[River]

Haven't had time to watch anything. Nor do I have time to do more than skim the opening of this reddit AMA, but just the opening post illustrates the complexities of Ukraine and the situation there. The person doing the AMA is half-Ukrainian, half-Russian. He participated in the protests in Kiev.

[Passdagas the Brown]

If you find the time, definitely watch the VICE News coverage. The best on-the-ground coverage of a conflict situation I have ever seen.

[River]

VICE can be like that.

The past couple days have been endless rounds of fuster-cluck. Today looks more promising.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Why do you think today looks more promising?