Russia mobilises - consequences and reactions

[Ax^]

Fear of Russian expansionism that couldn't possibly have taken place at the time the process began, as Russia was miltarily and economically on its knees.

As if there would have been no signalss from NATO governments that expansion would be welcome and the process more or less a formality. The result being that the most western-friendly Russian government in history was alienated, making the rise of a regime like the present one all but inevitable.

it natos fault putin got elected ?

does putin himself, not mention America pulling out of the ballistic missile treaty as the reason he soured on the west

 

[steveo87]

The class war?

Don't forget the console wars .

 

[RD2003]

it natos fault putin got elected ?

Putin didn't get elected initially, he was appointed. He was hand-picked by Yeltsin, and a select bunch of the Russian elite, partly in return for the Yeltsin 'family' never being prosecuted for corruption.

 

[Ax^]

so not natos fault

we are making progress

 

[Sweet FA]

Stay on topic or you'll get banned from this thread too.

Fuck me, somebody else brings it up, he expands on it then gets the threats Whose carpet has this bloke shat on? Most of the off topic stuff on this thread is the usual suspects whining about him.

 

[Ax^]

 

[strung out]

Fuck me, somebody else brings it up, he expands on it then gets the threats Whose carpet has this bloke shat on? Most of the off topic stuff on this thread is the usual suspects whining about him.

He was the first person to even mention NATO on this thread about Russian mobilisation.

 

[Tanya1982]

One development I would like to see from this is more sympathy from the western public (and media) for anyone fleeing anything.

The regularity of the ignorant but keenly chanted chorus, 'but they're all young men, cowards, stay and fight', is one of the most depressing things about coverage of everything from the Channel crossings to the Mexican border. In Europe, we know that just in recent history, we need look no further than our own continent for an example of why young men might reasonably be in the first wave - Srebrenica should be evidence enough. Although it seems rather forgotten - an insult which only compounds the crime.

Now, the spectacle of Russian men fleeing this gruesome draft to shore up the ego of a psychopath is adding to that weight of evidence. Perhaps those who'd criticise from the safety of their sofas might realise that far from feeling left behind by cowards, the mothers and wives of these young men will actually be able to sleep well tonight, knowing their relative is out of immediate danger, that they've escaped a real threat to life and limb that they themselves don't share. No mother would go ahead of her son.

Life is precious. Everything else - income generation, family reunion, language lessons - can be dealt with later. Unless you're dead, in which case nothing can ever be dealt with ever again. People have a right to live without belligerent cunts in the UK and US begrudging them every breath, or salivating over the prospect of 'sinking their boats' or 'bursting their dinghies', or deploying wave generation machines off Dover, or trafficking them to Rwanda, or whatever the cry of the day is. Some people never fail to shame themselves.

 

[Artaxerxes]

I hesitate to even bother but...

It would be a pretty bizarre interpretation of WWI that concluded that the formation of Triple Alliance and Triple Entente were not material factors revenant to the breakout of conflict. That is not the same thing as saying that they 'caused the war' or were deliberate attempts to "make" the other group start a war. But they were material factors that led to the conflict, and any sort of analysis that does not see the importance of such is ether liberal idealism or incoherent.

Tim Mason's theory of the flight forward, that Nazi Germany was 'forced' into war is not an attempt to absolve the crimes of the Nazi's. It is a based on looking at the material factors at play and coming to the judgement that internal and external factors that affected the regime meant that expansion and conflict were effectively inevitable.

I'm reluctant to make definitive claims about a conflict that is less than a year old, but I don't think it is crazy to suggest that the expansion of NATO (and the EU) are one of the material factors that have led to the the present conflict.
And seeing NATO expansion as a relevant material factor does not mean that one is absolving Putin of any responsibility for his murderous actions, it does not mean that one believes NATO were playing some game to "force" an invasion. It is an attempt to understand the material causes of the war.

It's fair to say that Russia has a history that's been wary of the west since at least pre-WW2 and that Putin is a product of the USSR and it's wish to keep a good chunk of distance between Moscow and hostile countries. That's a given.

But Putin has at the same time acted in a way that's done little but spread tension and corruption in both his country and the wider world. He can't want Russia to be secure and make the world less secure and not expect to be never fully embraced. Tonty Blair and others have been willing to take his money but there's more to the act of good relations than that. Putin's still frozen in the idea that the world works like the mid nineties and has broken his agreements and lied over and over again.

And the world's allowed it until now, it shouldn't have but it has. Sooner or later things hit the limit and Ukraine and it's resistance is it. Ukraine has it's issues and Zelensky isn't a saint but they clearly adapted and done so rapidly since decoupling from Putin's orbit post 2014. Russia... Hasn't, it's still stacking wealth in the pockets of a fraction of it's population and not even bothering to look after it's population.

 

[sleaterkinney]

I hesitate to even bother but...

It would be a pretty bizarre interpretation of WWI that concluded that the formation of Triple Alliance and Triple Entente were not material factors revenant to the breakout of conflict. That is not the same thing as saying that they 'caused the war' or were deliberate attempts to "make" the other group start a war. But they were material factors that led to the conflict, and any sort of analysis that does not see the importance of such is ether liberal idealism or incoherent.

Tim Mason's theory of the flight forward, that Nazi Germany was 'forced' into war is not an attempt to absolve the crimes of the Nazi's. It is a based on looking at the material factors at play and coming to the judgement that internal and external factors that affected the regime meant that expansion and conflict were effectively inevitable.

I'm reluctant to make definitive claims about a conflict that is less than a year old, but I don't think it is crazy to suggest that the expansion of NATO (and the EU) are one of the material factors that have led to the the present conflict.
And seeing NATO expansion as a relevant material factor does not mean that one is absolving Putin of any responsibility for his murderous actions, it does not mean that one believes NATO were playing some game to "force" an invasion. It is an attempt to understand the material causes of the war.

Putin has history of this, Chechnya, Georgia, Syria etc. This is just the latest one and he would have moved onto another country next. In fact the west’s response to Syria probably made him think he could get away with it.

 

[redsquirrel]

WWII started because Hitler was evil
....like I said not sure why I bothered

 

[sleaterkinney]

WWII started because Hitler was evil
....like I said not sure why I bothered

Not sure why you bother with us lesser mortals either.

 

[existentialist]

Yeah I've no patience with RD2003's line but this 'he loves Putin' stuff is bunk

Fair enough. In my (slight) defence, I stopped reading his posts in any way consistently a long time ago. I'd still argue that he's being an apologist for a lot of what is going on in Ukraine now.

 

[Sweet FA]

He was the first person to even mention NATO on this thread about Russian mobilisation.

But not the first to go off topic.

 

[existentialist]

But not the first to go off topic.

There's hitting the hard shoulder rumble strip, and then there's doing the full nosedive into the ditch...

 

[Tanya1982]

It's fair to say that Russia has a history that's been wary of the west since at least pre-WW2 and that Putin is a product of the USSR and it's wish to keep a good chunk of distance between Moscow and hostile countries. That's a given.

But Putin has at the same time acted in a way that's done little but spread tension and corruption in both his country and the wider world. He can't want Russia to be secure and make the world less secure and not expect to be never fully embraced. Tonty Blair and others have been willing to take his money but there's more to the act of good relations than that. Putin's still frozen in the idea that the world works like the mid nineties and has broken his agreements and lied over and over again.

And the world's allowed it until now, it shouldn't have but it has. Sooner or later things hit the limit and Ukraine and it's resistance is it. Ukraine has it's issues and Zelensky isn't a saint but they clearly adapted and done so rapidly since decoupling from Putin's orbit post 2014. Russia... Hasn't, it's still stacking wealth in the pockets of a fraction of it's population and not even bothering to look after it's population.

I think one of the saddest elements of all this is that Russia had options. It no doubt would've had a difficult 1990's in any timeline, although there would've been cultural undercurrents from those difficulties that could've subsequently flourished as the political fallout of the Soviet collapse began to settle, so even that could've become a positive.

They had so much human capital, such an educated population, a world famous megacity that was a hub for the half of the world the west didn't know - Cuba, parts of Africa, the modern Middle East - it could've continued to be, but instead it embarked on this white nationalist cul de sac that's reduced it to this unenviable nightmare.

It had its own very substantial diaspora in the United States and in Israel, and in the other Soviet republics, and to a lesser extent in parts of Europe. Google itself is the work of a Russian Jew. So many of these people could've been able ambassadors for a new Russia that wanted to move onwards and upwards from its past.

It has every kind of resource that any other society could monetize, and as it was starting from a very different kind of set up to the western economies, it could've built on them in a creative way. Instead, it's just this kleptocratic mess, hated, feared and despised by its neighbours, and with enclaves like Chechnya that were/are brutalized.

Chemical weapons have been unleashed on the streets of western democracies, there are credible reports that the Moscow apartment bombings were the work of Putinites, gay men are persecuted, an unholy alliance with the revived Russian Orthodox Church and the American Christian Right has spawned all kinds of tangled horrors.

Their citizens are lucky to live through their 60's, and even luckier to get to 60 in anything approaching good health. Addiction, HIV infection, TB - it's all off the charts. Now they're being conscripted by the gangster that's been robbing them blind for decades. It's so sad, and it could've all been so different for Russia - and for everyone else.

 

[The39thStep]

It's fair to say that Russia has a history that's been wary of the west since at least pre-WW2 and that Putin is a product of the USSR and it's wish to keep a good chunk of distance between Moscow and hostile countries. That's a given.

But Putin has at the same time acted in a way that's done little but spread tension and corruption in both his country and the wider world. He can't want Russia to be secure and make the world less secure and not expect to be never fully embraced. Tonty Blair and others have been willing to take his money but there's more to the act of good relations than that. Putin's still frozen in the idea that the world works like the mid nineties and has broken his agreements and lied over and over again.

And the world's allowed it until now, it shouldn't have but it has. Sooner or later things hit the limit and Ukraine and it's resistance is it. Ukraine has it's issues and Zelensky isn't a saint but they clearly adapted and done so rapidly since decoupling from Putin's orbit post 2014. Russia... Hasn't, it's still stacking wealth in the pockets of a fraction of it's population and not even bothering to look after it's population.

I'm glad you highlighted Blair's willingness to take his money and your view that there is more to the act of good relations than that. Indeed there was, Blair had no difficulties going to Petrograd not only to endorse Putin in the Russian presidential election whilst Putin was attacking Chechnya but also to do some lobbying on behalf of BP. In the spirit of good relations, Blair also opened up arms dealing with Russia , increasing both small arms exports , supplies of depleted uranium and components for surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles, military utility vehicles and explosives.

Blair of course was no stranger to either lying or breaking agreements himself and his actions illustrate the willingness of the UK to arm autocratic regimes when it suits its interests.

 

[Ax^]

if only it had stopped at Blair


checks the invites to the queens funeral

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

I hesitate to even bother but...

It would be a pretty bizarre interpretation of WWI that concluded that the formation of Triple Alliance and Triple Entente were not material factors relevant to the breakout of conflict. That is not the same thing as saying that they 'caused the war' or were deliberate attempts to "make" the other group start a war. But they were material factors that led to the conflict, and any sort of analysis that does not see the importance of such is ether liberal idealism or incoherent.

Tim Mason's theory of the flight forward, that Nazi Germany was 'forced' into war is not an attempt to absolve the crimes of the Nazi's. It is a based on looking at the material factors at play and coming to the judgement that internal and external factors that affected the regime meant that expansion and conflict were effectively inevitable.

I'm reluctant to make definitive claims about a conflict that is less than a year old, but I don't think it is crazy to suggest that the expansion of NATO (and the EU) are one of the material factors that have led to the the present conflict.
And seeing NATO expansion as a relevant material factor does not mean that one is absolving Putin of any responsibility for his murderous actions, it does not mean that one believes NATO were playing some game to "force" an invasion. It is an attempt to understand the material causes of the war.

Dictators don't need material causes to start wars. Nothing Hitler did was inevitable. Nothing Stalin did was. Nothing Putin has done. Their own flawed personalities and the systems they control give them the power, within varying limits, to do whatever they want. The same is true of other political systems, but to much lesser extents. All kinds of stuff may affect the decisions of dictators, including in this case the actions of NATO, but if NATO had not expanded eastwards can anyone say that a megalomaniac dictator like Putin would not have sought to recreate the Russian empire by invading Ukraine?

 

[RD2003]

He was the first person to even mention NATO on this thread about Russian mobilisation.

The reason being that if the whole NATO expansion in eastern Europe thing had been handled differently, when the western-friendly gang in Russia were in power, we might well not be seeing this mobilisation. We might not even know Putin.

 

[RD2003]

It's fair to say that Russia has a history that's been wary of the west since at least pre-WW2 and that Putin is a product of the USSR and it's wish to keep a good chunk of distance between Moscow and hostile countries. That's a given.

But Putin has at the same time acted in a way that's done little but spread tension and corruption in both his country and the wider world. He can't want Russia to be secure and make the world less secure and not expect to be never fully embraced. Tonty Blair and others have been willing to take his money but there's more to the act of good relations than that. Putin's still frozen in the idea that the world works like the mid nineties and has broken his agreements and lied over and over again.

And the world's allowed it until now, it shouldn't have but it has. Sooner or later things hit the limit and Ukraine and it's resistance is it. Ukraine has it's issues and Zelensky isn't a saint but they clearly adapted and done so rapidly since decoupling from Putin's orbit post 2014. Russia... Hasn't, it's still stacking wealth in the pockets of a fraction of it's population and not even bothering to look after it's population.

Russia has been wary of both 'the west' and China since a lot longer ago than WW2.

Putin would have remained a powerful but only regional official had it not been for the way 'the west' (speaking generally) acted towards Russia since the USSR decided to wind itself down. I fail to understand the implication that since the mid-1990s something about the world has changed for the better, and Putin won't go along with it. Nor the idea that Putin is the only politician to lie and break agreements, either in the contemporary world or earlier. As far as I can see, since the mid-'90s we've entered a world of permanent crisis (the culmination of the ex-Yugoslavia fiasco, which apparently nearly brought the world to the nuclear brink in one instance; 9-11 and its aftermath; the banking crash; the pandemic and now the completely avoidable Ukraine war. And this ignores not only the less-covered fiascos, but the ongoing climate crisis, to which there are no solutions, and which will inevitably throw up many, many more crises.)

'The world' does not allow anything, because, as I pointed out above, 'the world' doesn't exist any more than 'us' or 'we.'

It is the 2014 'decoupling' of Ukraine from Putin's orbit (or more accurately Russia's orbit), in the way it was done, at western prompting, which has gifted us the current war.

The kleptocracy that Putin heads is a direct product of the decision, on western advice, to destroy the ex-Soviet economy overnight. Everything that has happened in Russia as a result would happen, to one degree or another, in any society that suffers economic, political and social collapse-including this one. One reason Putin is in power, and a major one, is that the thieves who became known as the oligarchs thought they could control him. It turned out the other way round.

 

[RD2003]

Dictators don't need material causes to start wars. Nothing Hitler did was inevitable. Nothing Stalin did was. Nothing Putin has done. Their own flawed personalities and the systems they control give them the power, within varying limits, to do whatever they want. The same is true of other political systems, but to much lesser extents. All kinds of stuff may affect the decisions of dictators, including in this case the actions of NATO, but if NATO had not expanded eastwards can anyone say that a megalomaniac dictator like Putin would not have sought to recreate the Russian empire by invading Ukraine?

No, but, as I keep pointing out, the decisions taken in the west in the 1990s did piss off the most western-friendly government in modern Russian history, when there was a chance of preventing the rise of another authoritarian government in Russia.

It should be remembered that Putin, when he started out, was far from an outright dictator. His background was as a supporter of Glasnost and Perestroika, or at least an aid to those who did. His main boss at the time totally discredited himself by robbing Russian society blind. Monkey see, monkey do...

 

[RD2003]

Putin has history of this, Chechnya, Georgia, Syria etc. This is just the latest one and he would have moved onto another country next. In fact the west’s response to Syria probably made him think he could get away with it.

Total speculation. There is no way you, or anybody else, can claim either that they know what 'would' have happened with regard to any other country, or knowledge of Putin's thinking.

What happened in Georgia was in response to noises from the west about the possibility of Georgia (and Ukraine) joining NATO at some point. And therefore inevitable given Russian history. If this hadn't happened, the short war in Georgia almost certainly wouldn't have occured, nor the longer, potentially for all of us, disastrous one in Ukraine.

 

[Ax^]

Putin was provoked.... so his war is justified


can we fuck this putin bot off another thread or the whole Ukraine sub forum ?

 

[RD2003]

Putin was provoked....

To keep saying the same thing, no matter the way the argument is expanded, makes you seem like a simpleton.

For instance, I haven't once said 'Putin was provoked.' It isn't just about Putin.

 

[Ax^]

eg It's all Nato Fault ya fucking windbag..

 

[xenon]

The reason being that if the whole NATO expansion in eastern Europe thing had been handled differently, when the western-friendly gang in Russia were in power, we might well not be seeing this mobilisation. We might not even know Putin.
[/QUOTE]

Yeah, yeah. SO now what?
No really, what? Is this it for you, just sniping away, with the same old points. Arch sinic, act.


I mean you keep saying the same thing. Making the same point Any chance of reacting, developing to the world as is? I don't really care that much what you reckon, I just find it mildly interesting that you're stuck in this loop.

 

[Humberto]

To keep saying the same thing, no matter the way the argument is expanded, makes you seem like a simpleton.

For instance, I haven't once said 'Putin was provoked.' It isn't just about Putin.

The man who declared a war of terrorism and brutality was Putin. Nobody has a clue where it will end including you me and himself. However, the worst thing to do would be to (however reluctantly) give him ground, like he's the first man in history to hold the world to ransom. You however devote your time to undermining the only human, leftist position of resisting the man i.e. for very little cost and effort (here), only in solidarity with the massive majority of Ukraine (there).

 

[RD2003]

The man who declared a war of terrorism and brutality was Putin. Nobody has a clue where it will end including you me and himself. However, the worst thing to do would be to (however reluctantly) give him ground, like he's the first man in history to hold the world to ransom. You however devote your time to undermining the only human, leftist position of resisting the man i.e. for very little cost and effort (here), only in solidarity with the massive majority of Ukraine (there).

'He's the first man in history to hold the world to ransom' (as if this is 'a thing' as they say these days). Are you serious?

I devote little time to anything other than my sore knees and, occasionally, the state of my fucking insides these days. This forum, and the Ukraine war, is an afterthought. But worthwhile if only to be able to talk to people like you.

I think you mean 'humane' (a concept which is completely pliable) rather than 'human'. It is, for instance, completely 'human' to have a completely pointless war, and to cheer on the resulting slaughter. Happens time and time again, and has for many centuries. Or to do anything else which is, in our times, regarded as unspeakable.

As for what is 'leftist', who decides? And that's leaving aside the laughable idea of there having been little cost and effort to this war. And are you in Ukraine? Because even if you were, you'd still have little idea about who thinks what, let alone such certainty about 'massive majorities.' My guess is that there is a significant minority who wish they could go back to when none of this seemed possible. But I guess as much as you do.

 

[RD2003]

dp