History in the Making: Russian Invasion

93EXCivic said:

OHSCrifle said:

As horrific as it will surely be, I'm not sure why anyone would confidently think Putin won't use the nuclear option. He won't blame anyone but the United States for cratering his economy and I'll bet they're locked and loaded. 

I mean I personally think the likelihood of Russia using nukes at this point is pretty small. Putin wants to rebuild the Russian empire as much as possible not leave it as a nuclear wasteland. Also he does not strike me as a man who is suicidal

My theory is that this ends one of two ways, with tactical nuclear weapons used just as a show of insanity or an overthrow of Putin altogether. Let's hope for the latter if I'm correct.

OHSCrifle said:

As horrific as it will surely be, I'm not sure why anyone would confidently think Putin won't use the nuclear option. He won't blame anyone but the United States for cratering his economy and I'll bet they're locked and loaded. 

I'd like to think some in the chain between saying "send it" and actually sending it would put the brakes on it. It's not like Putin has a big red button next to his bed. 

In reply to tuna55 :

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/four-ways-the-war-in-ukraine-might-end/

I thought this article was fairly interesting on how these military experts see the war ending. Although I personally also see the possibility of some kind of deal at some point between Russia and Ukraine as well.

Time for some levity this morning on the topic.  Ukranian born Russian gear head and tik tok star offers us a life hack.  How to steal a Russian armored personnel carrier.  Ya know, just in case you find one...

https://bgr.com/lifestyle/russia-ukraine-war-tiktok-hack-for-driving-an-armored-car-goes-viral/

Posted to twitter by MFAUkraine (ministey of forien affairs?) https://twitter.com/MFA_Ukraine/status/1499305034898722816?s=20&t=ADjyK0X_0WMzXTKR6dD1oA

If true, here is a interesting parallel statistic.

 As of October 1, 2021, the United States had lost a total of 7,054 soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan - https://www.statista.com/statistics/303472/us-military-fatalities-in-iraq-and-afghanistan/#:~:text=As%20of%20October%201%2C%202021,with%20759%20coming%20from%20California.

93EXCivic said:

OHSCrifle said:

As horrific as it will surely be, I'm not sure why anyone would confidently think Putin won't use the nuclear option. He won't blame anyone but the United States for cratering his economy and I'll bet they're locked and loaded. 

I mean I personally think the likelihood of Russia using nukes at this point is pretty small. Putin wants to rebuild the Russian empire as much as possible not leave it as a nuclear wasteland. Also he does not strike me as a man who is suicidal

One theory is that Putin just wants to burn the Ukraine down for daring to be free and successful right next to Russia. He may just want to punish the Ukraine, set up a puppet government, and let its inevitable failure have a failed state on his border instead of an opposing one. If that's the case, there's no need to pull out nukes if his goal wasn't to really win so much as to throw a tantrum and break things.

And a big thank you to Hungary Bill for all he and his wife and friends are doing!

93EXCivic said:

In reply to tuna55 :

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/four-ways-the-war-in-ukraine-might-end/

I thought this article was fairly interesting on how these military experts see the war ending. Although I personally also see the possibility of some kind of deal at some point between Russia and Ukraine as well.

That was fairly interesting. I see a mid step between a few of the options. If the Ukrainians seem to be "winning" and Putin gets desperate, he might just use a small nuclear device on a highly visible target. This would taunt NATO, because we would be treaty bound to interfere at that point. We could see that as a difficult situation, "does a tactical small nuclear device really meet the letter of the treaty?" and NATO may be divided on how to respond. 

Unlike the ill-advised sanctions on Iran, these sanctions will work because the entire world is together on them. Sports, entertainment, finance, material, goods, and from basically every developed nation. If a move intended to show how insane he is could be done in such a way to drive some wedges in NATO or the EU, then we might see a problem developing. If I were Putin, and have no decency or regard for human life, this is probably the "best" scenario. Therefore as me, it's the one I am most concerned with.

John Mearsheimer's analysis in the New Yorker. I have great respect for Mearsheimer as a clear-eyed realist, and I think he's largely correct here. The headline is clickbait, but the logic of his argument is well-reasoned and utterly consistent.

Hungary Bill.

Please let us, your overseas family, know if there's anything we can do to help you.  That probably just means sending money, but if we can, I know many of us will.  You are the good we need more of in this world.

On Nukes, I don't think Putin is that level of crazy, even for tactical battlefield nukes.  That would cross a line that he couldn't come back from.  Those countries like China, India, and South Africa who have so far abstained from coming out against what Russia is doing will certainly come out against them after that.  And you can bet that anyone in the west with conventional weapons, including us, would probably go all in on taking out all Russian infrastructure, with preventing further nuke launches as priority #1.  And even then I don't think Putin would press the doomsday button.

02Pilot said:

John Mearsheimer's analysis in the New Yorker. I have great respect for Mearsheimer as a clear-eyed realist, and I think he's largely correct here. The headline is clickbait, but the logic of his argument is well-reasoned and utterly consistent.

That was hard to read, I can't get behind any of that. It was extremely simplistic and badly reasoned.

93EXCivic said:

In reply to tuna55 :

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/four-ways-the-war-in-ukraine-might-end/

I thought this article was fairly interesting on how these military experts see the war ending. Although I personally also see the possibility of some kind of deal at some point between Russia and Ukraine as well.

One more regarding the 'regime change' option. This is a bit of a dream: If someone within overthrew Putt Putt, and said "Ukraine, we are sorry and will help you rebuild. We're going to reorganize this mess, and we will have a real election in a year from today" he would be the most popular leader in the entire world. That has to be tempting someone. If the rumor is true that forces within the Kremlin helped alert Ukraine of the planned assassination of Zelensky, then some willingness might be there.

tuna55 said:

02Pilot said:

John Mearsheimer's analysis in the New Yorker. I have great respect for Mearsheimer as a clear-eyed realist, and I think he's largely correct here. The headline is clickbait, but the logic of his argument is well-reasoned and utterly consistent.

That was hard to read, I can't get behind any of that. It was extremely simplistic and badly reasoned.

I don't know. I very much agree that Putin is not intending to take the whole nation. One they don't have enough forces and two they have made no moves in the west of the country so far.

I still think Putin's objectives, a install a Putin friendly government in Kiev, stop NATO expansion into Ukraine, setup at least one independent republic in the east and create a land bridge from Crimea to east and to that Russian controlled part of Moldova.

But I also didn't think he would actually invade so what do I know.

I greeted my coworkers this morning as comrades and that didn't go over well lmao

tuna55 said:

02Pilot said:

John Mearsheimer's analysis in the New Yorker. I have great respect for Mearsheimer as a clear-eyed realist, and I think he's largely correct here. The headline is clickbait, but the logic of his argument is well-reasoned and utterly consistent.

That was hard to read, I can't get behind any of that. It was extremely simplistic and badly reasoned.

I'm curious to understand where you think the logic fails. As I see it, this is a straightforward example of standard realist great power theory.

Edit: It occurs to me that I may be lapsing into the traditional academic problem of talking about obscure things and assuming people will know what I'm referring to. If you'd like a quick primer on Mearsheimer's theory of offensive realism, here's a synopsis. I've quoted the basic explanation below.

The aim of Mearsheimer’s theory is to explain why relations between the great powers of the modern state system are fraught with conflict. Echoing Kenneth Waltz (1979), Mearsheimer argues that the structure of international politics is key in understanding this state of affairs. Specifically, Mearsheimer relies on five core assumptions — shared more or less by most contemporary realists, which characterize the essential traits of international politics. First, international politics is played out in an anarchical realm meaning that there is no ‘government of governments’ to enforce rules and punish perpetrators. Second, no state can ever be absolutely sure of each other’s intentions nor be sure that other states will not use force against them. Furthermore, states suffer from imperfect information about each other’s intentions and intentions are in constant flux — benign  intentions can quickly change into malignant ones and vice versa. Third, survival is the primary motivation of all states in the international system. Survival must have top priority since the autonomy of the state is a prerequisite for the achievement of all other ends. Fourth, states are rational entities in the instrumental sense of the word, that is, they think strategically about their external situation and choose the strategy that seems to maximize their basic aim of survival. Finally, Mearsheimer (1995b, 2001c) states always possess some military capacity enabling them to hurt and possibly to destroy each other. Marrying together these assumptions, Mearsheimer infers that the states soon realize that the most efficient way to guarantee survival in anarchy is to maximize their relative power with the ultimate aim of becoming the strongest power — that is, a hegemon. However, not all states can maximize their relative power simultaneously and, therefore, the state system is destined to be an arena of relentless security competition as long as it remains  anarchic (Mearsheimer 2001c: Chapter 2).

02Pilot said:

tuna55 said:

02Pilot said:

John Mearsheimer's analysis in the New Yorker. I have great respect for Mearsheimer as a clear-eyed realist, and I think he's largely correct here. The headline is clickbait, but the logic of his argument is well-reasoned and utterly consistent.

That was hard to read, I can't get behind any of that. It was extremely simplistic and badly reasoned.

I'm curious to understand where you think the logic fails. As I see it, this is a straightforward example of standard realist great power theory.

Here are the most problematic sections for me, but I cannot spend a ton of time to write an exhaustive rebuke. The formatting and such won't work well here either, so I'll use pictures.

He's saying the problem was meddling (simplified) but we have to understand that we should keep meddling, because that's just the way it is. Other than Bruce Hornsby playing through my head, there is not a single helpful aspect of "that's just the way it is" that is required, nor is it helpful to eat both sides of the cookie, so to speak.

He is completely forgetting about Georgia in 2008. Or skipping it because it is inconvenient to his narrative. This reads a lot like "Listen she may have a bloody nose, but she was asking for it, and we can't blame the guy because she was super mean."

I promise, dropping bombs on the country IS THE KEY ISSUE

Does he want Keiv?

No

But he sure seems to

Only he only wants it for [so and so]

So he does want it?

No he doesn't. Do you know what I am saying?

NO WE DO NOT.

I can't do the rest right now. That guy has no intellectual honesty it seems.

02Pilot said:

tuna55 said:

02Pilot said:

John Mearsheimer's analysis in the New Yorker. I have great respect for Mearsheimer as a clear-eyed realist, and I think he's largely correct here. The headline is clickbait, but the logic of his argument is well-reasoned and utterly consistent.

That was hard to read, I can't get behind any of that. It was extremely simplistic and badly reasoned.

I'm curious to understand where you think the logic fails. As I see it, this is a straightforward example of standard realist great power theory.

My simplest critique of his theory is: What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

This "theory" offers a whole lot of untestable guessing. It's very easy to look back on something and say, "If you'd done [this other thing], none of this would have happened!"

That theory offers an explanation that fits the facts. However, there are other explanations that ALSO fit the facts. The same behavior can be explained by: "Putin is a totalitarian who wants to expand his sphere of influence, longs for days of glory, and is upset by economic instability in his country. The natural result of this is to attempt to annex a neighbor with a cultural tie to Russia, that used to be part of a prior empire, that is militarily weaker, and that other major powers are unlikely to start a direct conflict over.

Which one of these two hypotheses seems more likely to explain ALL the behaviors? Are there any events that fit one theory, but not the other?

Russia invaded an annexed Crimea when there was much less political pressure from the west now.

If we look into history, this bears remarkable similarity to the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany. In that situation, western leaders even came to the Munich Agreement that they weren't going to mess with Germany, and Germany wouldn't expand. Germany ignored that agreement.

Mearshimer's theory is more convoluted, harder to test, explains fewer events, and makes less useful predictions of future events.

It's a classic example of a theory that can't *really* be disproven. Any theory that can't really be tested and disproven is effectively worthless.

tuna55 said:

02Pilot said:

John Mearsheimer's analysis in the New Yorker. I have great respect for Mearsheimer as a clear-eyed realist, and I think he's largely correct here. The headline is clickbait, but the logic of his argument is well-reasoned and utterly consistent.

That was hard to read, I can't get behind any of that. It was extremely simplistic and badly reasoned.

Lol.

Mearsheimer is a brilliant writer and observer of foreign affairs. Even if you disagree with him, calling him simplistic and badly reasoned is more a reflection on you than him.

In reply to tuna55 :

Having read a number of Mearsheimer's books, I tend to think that part of the problem here is that the interviewer 1) doesn't really understand the theoretical basis of the argument, and 2) is coming from a liberal internationalist point of view (note the use of the word liberal here has no political connotation whatsoever; most Americans, and most American politicians, subscribe to a version of liberal internationalism).

I think there's great value to understanding and accepting the basic mechanism by which international politics has operated since the foundation of the modern state system in the 17th Century. Realism is fundamentally founded on viewing international relations as they are, rather than as we might like them to be, whereas liberal internationalism seeks to structurally reorder the way countries interact, overturning centuries of precedent. Acknowledging that "that's the way it is" is in my view vastly more useful than saying "that's the way it ought to be".

I don't think he's ignoring Georgia, but rather referring only to situations specific to Ukraine, rather than situations specific to Russia.

I think we can agree that seizing Kyiv temporarily for purposes of installing a government is different from seizing and hold Kyiv indefinitely. The Soviets did this in a number of Eastern European capitals after the Second World War.

In reply to Beer Baron :

IR theory is always predictive, though based on historical analysis. I strongly recommend his The Tragedy of Great Power Politics for a much broader explanation of the foundations on which his theory is based.

I'd like to take this moment and say, war really does appear to bring people together. 54 pages and no one's cratered this thing yet. Color me impressed. Digital cookies for everyone

02Pilot said:

I'm curious to understand where you think the logic fails. As I see it, this is a straightforward example of standard realist great power theory.

...

...Third, survival is the primary motivation of all states in the international system. Survival must have top priority since the autonomy of the state is a prerequisite for the achievement of all other ends. Fourth, states are rational entities in the instrumental sense of the word, that is, they think strategically about their external situation and choose the strategy that seems to maximize their basic aim of survival. ...

These assumptions are flawed. These things can't be assumed. A state is not necessarily a monolithic body, especially not Russia. Current Russian foreign polic is very much an extension of the will of Vladimir Putin.

I would not assume that Putin's primary motivation is the survival of the Russian State. The Russian state will (or aught to) outlive him, and I have no reason to believe he is motivated by the long term health of the Russian state. Nor to assume that he is a rational actor.

If you compare Putin to previous totalitarian dictators - Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc. - their empires largely fell not long after their deaths. Their decisions were not guided by the survival of the state, but rather by maintaining power in themselves for as long as possible.

 Marrying together these assumptions, Mearsheimer infers that the states soon realize that the most efficient way to guarantee survival in anarchy is to maximize their relative power with the ultimate aim of becoming the strongest power — that is, a hegemon. However, not all states can maximize their relative power simultaneously and, therefore, the state system is destined to be an arena of relentless security competition as long as it remains  anarchic (Mearsheimer 2001c: Chapter 2).

This is also flawed, because expanding that power base would effectively mean bumping Russia up in the league it's playing with on the international stage. It can be the biggest kid on the form-Soviet bloc (pun intended) and flex power there. But if it hegemonizes and it's suddenly competing with NATO, the EU, and the U.S. which are exponentially more powerful than it is unless it resorts to nuclear war. Either way, it's survival is threatened.

This means that a medium power like Russia expanding its power through military conquest is *not* the logical choice for long term survival when it borders a major power like the EU/NATO and that expansion threatens those powers. So either Russia is not acting logically, or is not primarily concerned with its survival.

Again, I go back to my assertion that the "Russian State" is really an extension of Putin.

Was listening to Fiona Hill on the Colbert Show. ( why do we have to get so much of the news off these types of shows?) 

She reminded me that Putin ( and most public leaders) are instruments of a less visible power group that is only interested in their vision of a Russian Empire; sanctions and the wellbeing of the population are of no consequence or concern to this group. Putin is a middle manager to their dogma, a middle manager who has proposed a project and has no other option but to deliver what he promised.  

Mrs Hill describes having dinner with Putin and describes it as awkward, since he does not eat or drink during the event. Why? is left to the listener to conclude.

Putin believed he could convince the rest of the world that the economic isolation and violence in the Donbas against Russian separatists would constitute crimes against a ethnic minority. 

He equated this to Hussein's treatment of the Kurds. That Russia saw a duty to intervene against a government bombing its own people. 

He thought he could use the west's international intervention playbook to get away with invading an entire country and removing its leadership. This is why unilateral invasions are not a good idea. 

Again, he had all the justification necessary to go to NATO and the UN and enter into the Donbas as a peacekeeper with the aims of annexing those areas or creating a new independent state. Instead he just decided to invade first, ask questions later. 

Here's an interesting car guy reason for why they may be having trouble moving their equipment:

How cheap Chinese tires might explain Russia's 'stalled' 40-mile-long military convoy in Ukraine (msn.com)

Sounds plausible.