The Putin Doctrine
Zelenskyy recently made a speech right before the NATO summit in which he said this (in English):
The War of Russia is not only the war against Ukraine. Its meaning is much wider. Russian started the war against freedom as it is, this is only the beginning for Russia on the Ukrainian land. Russia is trying to defeat the freedom of all people in Europe; of all the people in the world. It tries to show that only crude and cruel force matters. It tries to show that people do not matter as well as everything else that make us people. That’s the reason we all must stop Russia.
Some of you may think this to be hyperbolic rhetoric. But I think he is referring to these concepts and plans of Putin. It’s an excerpt from an article written in late January, about a month before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, by a woman who has previously written a book on Putin:
The current crisis between Russia and Ukraine is a reckoning that has been 30 years in the making. It is about much more than Ukraine and its possible NATO membership. It is about the future of the European order crafted after the Soviet Union’s collapse…
…[T]he Russian president’s behavior is being driven by an interlocking set of foreign policy principles that suggest Moscow will be disruptive in the years to come. Call it “the Putin doctrine.” The core element of this doctrine is getting the West to treat Russia as if it were the Soviet Union, a power to be respected and feared, with special rights in its neighborhood and a voice in every serious international matter. The doctrine holds that only a few states should have this kind of authority, along with complete sovereignty, and that others must bow to their wishes. It entails defending incumbent authoritarian regimes and undermining democracies. And the doctrine is tied together by Putin’s overarching aim: reversing the consequences of the Soviet collapse, splitting the transatlantic alliance, and renegotiating the geographic settlement that ended the Cold War.
Here is Stent’s book on Putin. It was published three years ago and is entitled Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and with the Rest.
You may scoff at this; I do not. In my opinion the real question is not whether Putin wants this; he does. The real question is whether he has any hope of achieving it. His armies may not be doing very well, but he has two advantages. The first is his willingness to threaten nuclear war to get his way, and the second is the weakness of the West and in particular the current US administration (as well as its treachery regarding our own interests as a nation).
So…Putin wants Russia to be treated like it is a major power. Like we treat China.
Have we been treating Russia like a major power whose interests and sphere of influence should be acknowledged? Or have we more or less been doing whatever we want and expecting Russia to lump it?
Not that our behavior excuses Putin’s invasion but if the question is “How did we get to this point?’ I don’t think the answer is “Everything was fine and then this CRAZY guy did this CRAZY thing for NO REASON whatsoever.”
Mike
Mike. Question is whether the putative reason is something out of the ordinary in international relations.
NATO is only a threat–and Putin isn’t so dumb as to not know this–to plans to invade the West. So, as NATO expands, it shuts off his plans to invade the west. We get to do that. Might annoy him, but that’s on him. The alternative would be what?
I’ve spoken before about the Russian history and likely DNA about being invaded. But Putin is a smart guy and can read the tea leaves. Nobody’s in a position to, or even to contemplate, invading Russia. Although, contemplating how things are going in Ukraine, maybe his tea leaf reading isn’t up to par.
Have we economically damaged Russia? Competing in the energy market isn’t a casus belli, liberals’ heavy breathing notwithstanding.
We have so many intelligence agencies ignoring Chinese spies that they may have time to go after Russian spies, but that’s not the way to bet, either, what with all those annoyed parents. But there’s no version of HUAC casting shade on all things Russian.
Sure, Putin can be annoyed but whether it’s something we did wrong, so to speak, or something we did to protect ourselves and the west but annoys him anyway is an issue.
So…Putin wants Russia to be treated like it is a major power. Like we treat China.
China has a domestic product 5x that of Russia. It’s going to be treated more deferentially than Russia as a matter of course.
The problem at the moment is that Russia is attempting to conquer and subjugate a neighboring state just because it can. Only the most disruptive and deviant states of the last century do this.
and renegotiating the geographic settlement that ended the Cold War.
The ‘geographic settlement’ was that the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact dissolved. There are no countries in Europe, the Near East, or Central Asia hankering to join anything resembling the Soviet Union or the Warsaw Pact, bar, perhaps, White Russia. Thus coercing the Ukraine, a country which Putin maintains has no proper existence and has been stolen by Nazis.
Bunge the apologist and enabler.
The Biden regime has the answer to Putin and high gas prices. They are going to give every American (including illegals, I assume) 100 bucks a month to buy gas. That’ll show Putin.
Does anyone still not understand why Russia did this after Biden took over ?
Does anyone still not understand why Russia did this after Biden took over?
I’d like to think about the possibility that Biden intended to give Ukraine to Putin . . . and that’s why he offered Zelensky an exit.
Also, “10% for the big guy”. Was that Joe? Wasn’t Joe getting 50%? Could “the big guy” have been the sitting president?
I know I’m going off for conspiracy thinking, but after what we have seen I think we have to consider it.
So…Putin wants Russia to be treated like it is a major power. Like we treat China.
Have we been treating Russia like a major power whose interests and sphere of influence should be acknowledged? Or have we more or less been doing whatever we want and expecting Russia to lump it?
Russia is a lessor power compared to China, but it is also invading Ukraine, which is what China wants to do with Taiwan. We are not treating them all that differently when it comes to sphere of influence. China is upset that the Quad exists, China is pressuring neighboring countries and trying to expand its control over ocean that doesn’t belong to them. The same basic dynamic exists.
If Russia wants to be treated more as a peer it needs to become one.
And Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shown lots of weakness, hence less reason to consider them a peer. They have lots of old Soviet junk, a poor quality military, although they still have a good weapons design system for a third world country.
So far, most of what Zelensky has offered has been hyperbolic rhetoric. Speaking to Israel, he alludes to the Holocaust. Speaking to Western Europe, he alludes to the Nazis and Stalin. Speaking to an adoring U.S. Congress, he speaks of Martin Luther King Jr.
Stent states, “The current crisis between Russia and Ukraine is a reckoning that has been 30 years in the making. It is about much more than Ukraine and its possible NATO membership.”
That is an implicit admission by her that Putin is concerned about “Ukraine and its possible NATO membership”.
“It is about the future of the European order crafted after the Soviet Union’s collapse…”
Here I somewhat agree but unsurprisingly, not with the rationale she advances; “Russia is trying to defeat the freedom of all people in Europe; of all the people in the world.”
Firstly, Russia hasn’t the capability “to defeat the freedom of all people in Europe”, much less “all the people in the world”.
So that’s a ludicrous assertion.
Secondly, there is a group that does want to eliminate the freedom of all people in the world and that would be those aligned with the stated goals of the Great Reset. Which is confirmed by their own words, easily found on the internet.
I suspect that Putin has taken the measure* of the West’s current political leadership and decided that they are committed to creating a world government under their control. One in which the Russian people would be as subservient, as those in the West. And I think he sees the Left’s ‘cultural’ takeover of the West, as an anathema.
Putin is not just a brutal dictator. He’s also a nationalist and a traditionalist.
*Putin did familiarize himself with the WEF at Davos.
“…[T]he Russian president’s behavior is being driven by an interlocking set of foreign policy principles that suggest Moscow will be disruptive in the years to come. Call it “the Putin doctrine”.”
I somewhat agree though for different reasons than, “The doctrine holds that only a few states should have this kind of authority, along with complete sovereignty, and that others must bow to their wishes. It entails defending incumbent authoritarian regimes and undermining democracies.”
So far Putin hasn’t demanded that the Baltic States or Poland for instance “must bow to his wishes”. Which he might, if not for NATO.
He has demanded that the Ukraine bow to his wishes, as expressed in the conditions Putin states as necessary to end the invasion; the Ukraine accepting a permanent status as a neutral buffer State, which would permanently bar it from NATO membership. Ukraine’s agreement with the Donbas region’s independence and formal recognition of the Crimea’s incorporation into Russia. And the demilitarization of Western Ukraine.
If sincere, those conditions do not indicate a desire to keep expanding. Putin’s future actions would either reinforce or contradict that supposition.
As for the Putin doctrine having a goal of “undermining democracies”… there’s no need for that goal, as the West’s political leadership has already revealed that undermining democracy is its goal as well. The Biden administration, the Trudeau administration, the U.K., as well as Macron and Merkel’s administration and its successor… plus Italy, and the Swiss have all acted to substantively undermine democracy in their nations. We can throw in Australia and New Zealand as well. Hungary and Poland are holdouts with Hungary now being ‘punished’ by the EU.
I do think Putin is prepared to do whatever he can to prevent Russia from falling under the sway of the West’s leadership and I think that includes whatever degree of brutality is required to accomplish that goal.
He’s also a nationalist and a traditionalist.
If he were an actual nationalist, he’d have some irredentist claims to border bits held by Kazakhstan, Estonia, and the Ukraine as of 2013, and would otherwise be satisfied with Russia’s ample territory. He’s pretty haphazard with the traditionalist business, what with his series of mistresses and ba*tard children. The best you could say is that he’s not impressed with the woke.
They are going to give every American (including illegals, I assume) 100 bucks a month to buy gas.
Again, put people on your patronage and manufacture pr fodder. That’s about 2/3 of what the Democrats do. The other third is Alinskyite harassment of everyone else in every conceivable venue at all conceivable times with every rusty tool in the box (funded by the sorosphere).
MBunge,
Welcome to the club, membership of which is determined by expressing views considered unacceptable by some and ‘proof’ of being an “apologist and enabler”. Wear your badge with pride, it’s the American way.
Richard Aubrey,
“NATO is only a threat–and Putin isn’t so dumb as to not know this–to plans to invade the West.”
That was once a certainty. Now, perhaps not so much. The WEF Global Elite and their political operatives (Trudeau, Freeland, Macron, Buttigieg, etc.) control NATO and may one day see a “brief, victorious war” as a ‘regrettable’ necessity. Certainly moral considerations would not be a factor in their thinking.
Don,
“Russia is a lessor power compared to China”
Economically and in conventional military forces agreed. Russia’s nuclear arsenal is their ‘trump card’. Their ability to access Russia’s vast natural resources set Russia above second world nations but do not in and of themselves grant first world status.
Geoffrey, does that badge give you permission to wear a big red rubber nose, an orange wig, floppy shoes, and face paint?
Buttigedge in control of NATO? LOL
Macron is the PM of France IIRC. Did you know Geoffrey that France is not, … wait for it ……., not part of NATO? LOL Geoffrey.
Amything else you wish to wear with pride?
Pride goes before the fall. Does obstinacy lead the pridefull to pratfalls?
Geoffrey Britain:
MBunge has been commenting here for a long time and often disagrees with others on several topics. Since the Ukraine war began, MBunge has been pretty consistently expressing views that are different from the majority here on that topic as well. This isn’t something new. Different views are welcomed here, and there’s a lot of back and forth among commenters in general. So why the sudden “welcome to the club” from you?
Furthermore, your own “membership” isn’t merely “determined by expressing views considered unacceptable.” This is not a religious group whose orthodoxy you have offended. You have been expressing views that many and perhaps even most people here consider poorly thought out and poorly evidenced, which is why they are not “accepted” by most.
Art Deco,
So a nation’s nationalists always agree on their nation’s proper boundaries? Do all traditionalists share the same morality?
What degree of loyalty to nationalist and traditional standards must one embody to qualify for that appelation?
Yes dependency is a major tool and goal of the democrats.
neo,
On this issue, we will have to agree to disagree. Time will tell which of us has poorly thought out their views on this subject. If subsequent events prove me wrong, I assure you that I will freely admit to it.
This war is more likely to reduce the power of Russia, not increase it.
China is likely the real winner hear. Apparently the great KGB Putin has asked China for help. So who is really the great power and who is the down and falling vassal?
om,
I would never stoop to swiping your costume.
I didn’t say that Buttigieg was in control of NATO. But I can see where you could get that impression, sorry for the lack of clarity. I said that he’s a political operative aligned with the WEF. WEF influences NATO through its alliances with the West’s political leadership.
Pride does go before the fall. A willingness to admit to error is protection against prideful obstinacy.
Geoffrey:
Since you asked:
https://www.usbodybags.com/
PVC or polyethylene. Leak resistance is important, as are weight, cost, strength, and incineratability (cremation). Biodegradibility? Not even.
Geoffrey Britain:
What subsequent event could prove you right?
No one here is saying that Putin will inevitably succeed. We are talking about his hopes, dreams, desires, plans, goals. You seem to think they are very very limited. I think they are far more expansive. I would be proven right if – within our lifetime – he succeeds. But that’s not required for me to be “right” in terms of his long-term “goals.” In addition, he might pause in his pursuit of these things, waiting for just the right time. Then you would think that your position has been vindicated, but it would not necessarily be vindicated at all – he just might be going slowly. He’s not all that old, and if he’s healthy, he’s got time (or his hand-picked successor would have time).
Or he might be effectively thwarted. I sincerely hope Putin is roundly defeated and taken out of business. In that case, his ultimate goals will remain unknown, unless we find his secret diary.
It was something like eight years between Putin’s activity in Crimea and his war against Ukraine itself. He was waiting for the right time. Things could speed up in the future, depending on the Ukraine outcome, or they could slow down. If he runs out of money, he might really have to slow down, but that tells us nothing about what he’d like to do.
Hitler went slowly at first in terms of his international ambitions, but when he started waging war he went pretty quickly. Many people thought at first that he was a joke, or modest in his ambitions (just wanting the Sudetenland, etc.), but they were wrong. If he hadn’t been as successful as he initially was, people probably would not have realized the scope of what he wanted to do. He was ultimately defeated, but not without widespread suffering. But even when he was defeated, most people didn’t know – and to this very day most people still don’t know – about the scope of what he intended but did not accomplish. It was extraordinarily evil and encompassed a great deal of the world.
Putin is not Hitler, of course. I am bringing Hitler up not to say their goals are the same or that they are the same, but merely as an illustration of how many mistakes people can make about a tyrant’s goals.
Geoffrey, you own the badge and those duds lately. And about France and NATO? Turkey, Poland, Hungary, Romania, all under the WEF thumb?
Otay
It is your story.
Bless your heart.
om:
I believe that France left NATO but then rejoined. See this. I’m not sure what you’re talking about here.
The illuminati, the Trilateral Commision, the WEF. Tomorrow it will be a different all-powerful cabal of geopolitical geniuses.
And the day after that I shall rule all at last from thence unto the last ding dong of doom!
KISS THE GLOVE!
neo:
Yes I was mistaken about France and NATO, but won’t try to Geoffrey that, but will say that France has chosen to go its own way from time to time. That Fremch behavior undermines Geoffrey’s spiel that NATO is just the military arm of the WEF / Davos.
My other point is that there are significant differences among NATO members and the agenda of WEF / Davos.
So a nation’s nationalists always agree on their nation’s proper boundaries? Do all traditionalists share the same morality?
Were he an actual nationalist, rebuilding the Soviet Union would not be on his agenda. Yes, all occidental traditionalists respect the order of family life.
You’re welcome.
NOTE to NEO: your link at “these concepts and plans” does not pull up an article by Stent, but this post at Foreign Affairs:
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2022-03-21/how-make-peace-putin
It’s interesting and I am going to comment on it, but it’s not the source of your excerpt.
This appears to be that source, or at least it’s one that matches the excerpt:
https://thecsspoint.com/the-putin-doctrine-by-angela-stent/
Bonus link: an interview with Stent on March 7. Nothing she says is particularly new or different from at least one faction’s consensus, but it’s very simply laid out, almost as a FAQ, and thus good for sharing with people who want to hear from the experts.
One notable excerpt – how CW 2.0 is not the same as CW 1.
https://octavian.substack.com/p/a-dangerous-mind-angela-stent-on?s=r
“There are limits to how we can affect his calculus. If he’s determined to do keep going, I don’t think anything’s going to stop him.”
* *
Stent’s credentials as an expert, per Wikipedia:
AesopFan:
Thanks, I’ll fix the link.
In re Stent – her post on January 27 was pretty good prophecy.
(NOTE: I just noticed that it was originally published in Foreign Affairs, so maybe that’s how that other post got tagged by Neo’s link.)
She doesn’t say outright that he will invade (“Putin may still decide not to invade.”) but my feeling is that she would have been more surprised if he hadn’t than that he did.
Anybody can claim after Feb 24 that they just knew Putin would invade, because he had. Considering it this seriously ahead of time, when just about everyone* was declaring “no way,” is definitely a star on her “expert” report card.
Mic drop quote: “The Warsaw Pact was an alliance that had a unique track record: it invaded only its own members.”
BTW, her bio is a good quick tour of Russia’s international profile.
She is clearly a Democrat, but does not appear to be a radical leftist of the new generation. She is definitely not a right-wing conservative nut-job.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Stent
My caveats:
Stent:
Like most Democrats, she took Trump literally but not seriously.
IMO (and I’m not alone), Trump was rattling the cages of the EU-branch and other NATO members to get them to step up their own defense, and a threat to take the US ball and go home was one of the sticks he used. It worked, to a certain extent.
Would he have pulled out if they hadn’t at least started amending their ways?
Who knows. That’s what made his threats effective.
Stent:
That looks…kind of familiar. Maybe it really is easier to work with someone who has the same playbook you do.
BTW, note that there are factions in the West simultaneously claiming that Putin started this war because the US and Europe didn’t play well with Russia in the past, and that Trump was much too chummy with Russia. SMH
Stent:
Well, that didn’t work our very well.
*See my next comment.
*Anyone have links to any other prophetic exceptions, other than the video Neo posted today of Alexander Nevzorov?
The commenters on that video mentioned a Ukrainian, Oleksiy Arestovych [Alexey Arestovich], and Wikipedia had this to say, since it seems to be of some importance to know the credentials of our sources
(note: he is also an erstwhile thespian, but Ukrainians seem to wear a lot of professional hats):
[6] is this footnote and I have looked at it the linked video.
“Oleksiy Arestovych and his prediction of Russian aggression (2019) – EN subtitles”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xNHmHpERH8
I didn’t know if it was a general “Putin might invade, probably will sometime” or a “he is gonna do it as soon as he sees an opening.”
It was the latter, and very specific, and very direct about WHY Ukraine made overtures to NATO under President Zelenskyy.
There are English subtitles (as on the Nevzorov video), so set the speed to double-time and read along. Most important part starts about 7:30.
@ Neo > “most people still don’t know – about the scope of what he [Hitler] intended but did not accomplish. It was extraordinarily evil and encompassed a great deal of the world.”
Evil doesn’t even begin to describe that plan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost
I do wonder if FDR and Stalin had some knowledge of the Plan, and if that influenced their actions.
It doesn’t appear so from the article, but there might have been some “leaks” to the West from one of the anti-Hitler groups that were colluding with the Allies. If so, they are still very deeply buried.
[16]Snyder, Timothy (2012). Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. Basic Books. Generalplan Ost. ISBN 978-0465002399.
Om,
You are getting as tiresome as the late, unlamented Zaphod.
At least he had an occasional modicum of wit.
Molly, have a good day, anything else to say?
On the Victor Davis Hanson thread, Mike K linked a post by Ruy Teixeira on a Substack account, and one of the other authors, Peter Juul, posted this article on March 23. I think he brings up a lot of important points, and makes some good arguments. Please note that the co-authors are self-avowed Democrat-liberal-progressives-but-not-rabid-leftists.
https://theliberalpatriot.substack.com/p/what-would-a-ukrainian-victory-look?s=r
“Why America should make its priorities clear as soon as possible”
It contrasts highly in tone and substance with the Foreign Affairs article that Neo linked in error for Stent’s post.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2022-03-21/how-make-peace-putin
“The West Must Move Quickly to End the War in Ukraine”
I think they exemplify the split between the camps espousing “victory for Ukraine on its own terms” versus “give Putin some of what he wants and he will go away happy.”
Slava Ukraini.
Important to read, and watch for updates –
https://redstate.com/streiff/2022/03/23/correlation-or-causation-the-ukraine-invasion-has-stalled-and-putins-defense-minister-and-chief-of-the-general-staff-have-vanished-n539796
https://redstate.com/streiff/2022/03/24/russian-military-leaders-refusal-to-talk-to-us-leaders-creates-a-dangerous-lights-on-nobody-home-situation-n540120
https://redstate.com/streiff/2022/03/24/russias-defense-minister-surfaces-after-two-week-disappearance-and-the-mystery-deepens-n540622
Which didn’t really help a lot.
Apparently, there is no word yet on Gerasimov.
The Distributist on youtube summed up the whole fiasco along the lines of this conflict is a proxy war between two empires fighting over influence of a client state. The only question is whether the Nato countries would have the willpower to resist the Russian actions. That this mess will create real wide spread starvation, since the Russians and Ukraine are exporters to Africa of grain.
Every indication is the Nato powers did not prepare to organize a campaign to deter or counter the Russians. The whole, Poland to exchange planes after the invasion is a clear example that the basic ground work necessary to Nato’s side was not done. Further more, the shutting down of Oil and Gas production in US has only strengthened Russia. The inverted drive to make “peace” with Iran using Russian diplomats is another example.
The only thing Nato has been good at has been the media war, and the corporate cancellation effort. All of which is too little and too late. Nato isn’t willing to fight foreign powers. They are far more focused on internal issues and violating their constitutions to maintain power.
The Distributist on youtube summed up the whole fiasco along the lines of this conflict is a proxy war between two empires fighting over influence of a client state.
Well, that’s a stupid way of summarizing it. The Ukraine hasn’t been a client state of the United States or anyone else, it has every right and reason to fight for its own interests, and the people who elected to wage war are the Russians.
The Putin Doctrine seems Cold Warish, with his own little hot spots, but
anyway the expulsion of embassy “employees” is just a misunderstanding?
https://redstate.com/streiff/2022/03/24/poland-expels-45-russian-spies-posing-as-diplomats-as-fears-of-attacks-on-ukraine-supply-route-looms-n540420
Putin is doing the same thing he accuses NATO of doing.
So then, why would Putin desire that Russia be treated as a major power?
Why is it not enough that Russia develops to the maximum its own economy, technology, standard of living, etc?
Why does Putin seek personal recognition as the leader of a major power?
Sounds like a spoiled child in the midst of a temper tantrum because he was refused cookies before dinner.
In 1925, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, in which is his concept of Lebensraum (living space) presented; basically describing how a greater Germany needed to colonize much of Eastern Europe.
Note that Hitler became Chancellor (legally) in 1933.
Apparently nobody in the UK, France, etc., bothered reading his book.
Just as Hitler had his plan all sorted out years before he could do anything about it, so did Putin. Unlike Hitler though, Putin didn’t broadcast his intentions years before he was able to act upon them.
Check out the arguments advanced by Hitler in regards to his demand to take control of the Sudetenland. They are very similar to those Putin used in invading Crimea and later on Ukraine.
History may not repeat but it sure rhymes.
Ironically, China could look at a degraded Russian army and use the same excuse to try to regain Manchuria, territory they still covet, to protect the native Chinese living there.
China could look at a degraded Russian army and use the same excuse to try to regain Manchuria, territory they still covet, to protect the native Chinese living there.
The central government in China has held Manchuria since 1949.
@Don-that has been my thought all along too. Hard to imagine Biden, even in his hey day plagiarizing Neil Kinnock, would be “the big one, he never had veritas.
Art Deco,
Not all of it. In the mid 19th Century Russia imposed the Amur Annexation on China which took the NE chunk of Manchuria (Outer Manchuria) from the Qing Dynasty of China. Curiously enough one of the impetuses to the Russian drive to expand east in Asia which led to that annexation was the Crimean War. Eventually the Russians used their leverage in the Second Opium Wars to finalize their control over that portion of Manchuria (an area which currently includes Vladivostok).
Don’t think the Chinese have forgotten. They consider the treaties which annexed Outer Manchuria as being unequal treaties forced on them, and that those treaties are part of the Century of Humiliation that weighs heavily on their thinking.
That said, I was being a bit facetious in my comment. I don’t really think there is much of a chance they would actually try to invade and reclaim Outer Manchuria.
The point is the larger powers are contesting over a smaller nation. The NATO powers didn’t do the ground work to deter the Russian power while expanding it’s influence. The Russians objected and started the invasion. The NATO powers responded with Media and cancellation. The Russian military hasn’t been deterred and the mess is going to hurt more and more people the longer this mess continues.
Ukraine wants NATO to go to war with Russia to save itself. I understand that desire, but the NATO hasn’t organized itself or prepared for a conflict. NATO is needs oil and gas from Russia.
The problem NATO and Ukraine has is the US pullout in Afghanistan. The way the US left Afghanistan sent a signal that the US is unwilling or is unable to manage a military campaign. And the rest of the US allies are left in a weaker position because the leadership demonstrated itself to be unserious last year.
Well, that’s a stupid way of summarizing it. The Ukraine hasn’t been a client state of the United States or anyone else, it has every right and reason to fight for its own interests, and the people who elected to wage war are the Russians.
There are quite a few people, including me, who believe that Ukraine has had many of the features of a client state of the US, or at least the CIA, for years. Aside from bioweapons labs, there is the Biden brag that he got Ukraine to cancel an investigation of his son in hours.
I have no objection to Ukraine defending itself and Russia did invade with weak excuses. Still, they behaved much like a client state.
There is a big difference between a biological research lab and a biological weapons lab. Facts vs propaganda.
We aren’t at war with Xi land and it is not known what the Wuhan Institute of Virology was and is actually doing; research only or research that was applied to weapons. Good luck finding out what has been going on in the Ukrainian bio facilities while they are at war with Russia.
Still, they behaved much like a client state.
That Biden was able to buffalo them into firing that prosecutor shows they are penetrable. I’m afraid our own government is penetrable.
They’re not in a military alliance. World Development Indicators does not report any overseas development assistance over the last 25 years. Their trading partners are numerous, with no country receiving more than 14% of their exports and none accounting for more than 15% of their imports (the U.S. accounts for 2% and 5.5% respectively). They do buy military equipment from abroad, the ratio of arms purchases to gross domestic product nominal did not exceed 0.003 in the last decade.
The point is the larger powers are contesting over a smaller nation.
No, the problem is that a larger power wants to conquer and liquidate a smaller country. NATO’s role in this is to make that more difficult for fear of the implications of a successful conquest.
Don’t think the Chinese have forgotten. They consider the treaties which annexed Outer Manchuria as being unequal treaties forced on them, and that those treaties are part of the Century of Humiliation that weighs heavily on their thinking.
About 92.5% of the population of Primorsky Krai is Great Russian. About 0.2% are Chinese and 1.0% are Korean. The aboriginal population is nearly extinct. If it weighs ‘heavily on their thinking’ that this piece of land is not theirs, it’s another indicator that China is Asshole.
neo,
Subsequent events: in 5-10 years, you (and the rest of us) awaken one day to discover that you’ve been canceled and have no access to any of your financial resources. Nor do you have legal recourse. And that anyone to whom you go to for help is subsequently canceled as well.
Belatedly realizing that Putin’s defeat and ouster was an important step in the Left’s advancement to global governance.
That’s not an assertion that Putin’s a good guy or justification for his invasion of the Ukraine.
Just an assertion that the West’s current ideological leadership has far worse plans for us and, that Putin’s nationalism is currently an intransigent obstacle to the Left’s agenda of achieving global governance.
“No, the problem is that a larger power wants to conquer and liquidate a smaller country. NATO’s role in this is to make that more difficult for fear of the implications of a successful conquest.”
NATO’s role is to protect NATO countries, not act as a military branch of U.S. or western European foreign policy.
And I don’t think I can sum up the enormous problem with the discussion around Ukraine better than to point out that people who had no idea there were “biological research labs” in Ukraine until a few weeks ago are now totally certain they are “biological research labs” and not “biological weapons labs” because…wait for it…THE GOVERNMENT TELLS THEM SO.
This is the generation who grew up reading about Vietnam and lived through Afghanistan.
Mike
Art Deco,
You’re missing the point. It matters what the Chinese think about the area and what their long-term plans/desires may be. From The Unlikely Prospect of Long-Term Sino-Russian Cooperation: Points of Divergence in the Emerging Security Environment.
Again, I don’t think it is actually likely that they’ll do anything about that today, but there are a lot of ethnic Chinese in Siberia. However, I will get nervous if they start issuing those people Chinese passports, which would mirror the trick Russia used to DeFacto claim, and then to justify, their pushing in Crimea and the Donbas to ‘protect’ their citizens.
Bunge:
A bit slow on the uptake again it seems, nobody except the Ukrainians know what was going on in those biological research facilities. That nobody includes me, and you, and Mike K.
You understand the concepts fog of war, and propaganda? You understand that calling something a biological weapons lab is not a neutral assertion, Bunge?
It matters what the Chinese think about the area and what their long-term plans/desires may be.
Gee, thanks for the instruction. I don’t know what I’d do without your wisdom.
NATO’s role is to protect NATO countries, not act as a military branch of U.S. or western European foreign policy.
Those aren’t distinct functions. That aside, engineering a re-assessment of plans to conquer the Baltic states is protecting NATO countries.
Bunge, you are indeed slow today. Which generation are you deriding, young man? I was in High School when the Vietnam War draft ended, lived througt it as a the son of an Army NCO in an area heavily populated with Army and Marine families. Do you know what the Commisary, or PX, or living in base housing means? I’m guessing you have no idea.
Belatedly realizing that Putin’s defeat and ouster was an important step in the Left’s advancement to global governance.
Geoffrey thinks V. Putin is preventing your bank from shutting your account unilaterially. Someone let Mrs. Michael Flynn know.
Geoffrey Britain:
No, those things would not prove me right or you right, or me wrong or you wrong. Your thought process there is opaque to me, and I haven’t got the time to try to clarify except to say that we’ve been disagreeing on Putin’s intent and goals.
To borrow a phrase from the Vietnam conflict and the movie Platoon, America has “zips in the wire” (enemies inside our perimeter). The zips in this case are Antifa, BLM, and the illegitimate Biden regime. What has made all of the above intolerable is the passivity and/or corruption of our justice system.
The Russia/Ukraine conflict is of interest only if there is a remote chance it could somehow relieve us of the above malignancies (radiation therapy?). Otherwise it’s not terribly relevant.
but there are a lot of ethnic Chinese in Siberia.
About 29,000.
It seems obvious…so obvious that saying it is kind of offensive or something…that the facts on the ground, Ukraine or Siberia, are only relevant as the biggest of big shots see them.
Anybody else’s view is…irrelevant.
What is actual, factual, or seems relevant to us is only going to affect the situation if the biggest of big shots see it the same way.
As a number of people have pointed out–my most recent brush with the genre is Sowell, “Intellectuals and War”–the mid to late Thirties were characterized by, among other things, oceans of earnest explanations of why Hitler wasn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t, wouldn’t make sense to, would be counterproductive to what he wants all the things he did. Very smart people were making very intelligent arguments.
Seeing as the US lost 400k dead, maybe having that many more guys in uniform in 1939, along with maybe a tenth of the various resources–ships, planes, trucks, artillery, we lost eventually–coming out of New Deal-funded factories would have been a better argument.
Art Deco,
Apparently Putin doesn’t agree with your numbers.
source
In relationship to the Ukraine War, the point of this is that Russia has constraints as it approaches China for aid against the sanctions and to bolster its war effort. Russia has to walk a tightrope between getting that aid and turning itself into a Chinese vassal state. Chinese dreams of a ‘Greater China’ conflict with Russian aims for a “Greater Russia’. Both Putin and the Chinese understand that and will both try to take advantage of the other, but there are lines neither will want to cross.
Bear in mind it is not just the West vs Russia in this conflict, also on the backburner is the distrustful Sino-Russian relationship. That will influence how Russia tries to manage things.
“Bunge, you are indeed slow today. Which generation are you deriding, young man?”
Uh, that would be you. For example, other people did know about the “biological research labs” in Ukraine. Just ask the New York Times:
“There are biological laboratories inside Ukraine, and since 2005, the United States has provided backing to a number of institutions to prevent the production of biological weapons.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/11/us/politics/us-bioweapons-ukraine-misinformation.html
So, lots of folks knew these labs existed. They just didn’t tell you about them. And now the government that lied to you about Vietnam and lied to you about Afghanistan, including lying to you about the drone-strike murder of completely innocent civilians, and lied about the possibility COVID-19 came from a lab in Chine and didn’t tell you about these Ukrainian labs is telling you “Of course, these aren’t biological weapons labs.”
And you, apparently, take their word for it.
Slow learner, aren’t you?
Mike
Apparently Putin doesn’t agree with your numbers.
I quoted the 2010 census figure. Thanks for the text wall from Wikipedia.
Chinese dreams of a ‘Greater China’
Your last intervention contended that China’s in a snit over a treaty they signed in 1860 transferring a piece of territory that was at that time nearly empty of people. We’re in interesting times if that counts as an issue to the current Chinese government.
So, lots of folks knew these labs existed. They just didn’t tell you about them.
Why would they have had occasion to tell ‘me’ about them?
Art Deco,
I’ll simplify the wall of text for you.
As an aside, one reason to support Ukraine’s territorial integrity is we really don’t want countries to be grabbing each other’s land. Nothing good comes from that.
Putin also says that the Ukraine is not a real country and that it has been captured by Nazis. What gave you the idea that Russia falsifies its census figures?
Uh… you’re the one citing Russian census figures, not me. My ‘wall of text’, which apparently overwhelmed you, was pointing out that most people think those figures are far too low.
All I’m saying is that Putin, in considering his moves in Ukraine (and I think his Russian invasion is in trouble and he needs to climb down to extract Russia from it), has to take into effect what China, a country he doesn’t trust for historical reasons, will do to further their interests. It’s just part of the equation and it should not be overlooked.
was pointing out that most people think those figures are far too low.
No, it cites a Taiwanese agency and a nebulous ‘Russian’ source. The wiki footnote is to a Russian language site that for all you know could be a discography of Burt Bacharach.
Bunge do you understand the difference between the words research and weapons?
It seems that you don’t. Sad to be you, try a dictionary, young man.
Skepticism, young man, especially in a wartime situation between Ukraine and Russia. You certainly have trouble with reading today.
z
About biological labs in Ukraine https://haqqin.az/news/239043
The article is in Russian, please use Google translate to read
Art Deco,
I also quoted Vladimir Putin who may have a better grasp of Russian demographics that you do.
ambisinistral:
Putin may have a better grasp of Russian demographics. Then again, he may not. Dictators often have underlings who are afraid to tell them the truth, and only tell them what they want to hear.
Or Putin may know the truth, but might be lying for public consumption.
om:
Re your comment at 6:54 PM – please say what you want to say without so much gratuitous bashing.
Zara:
Thanks for the link and the Google translation hint, it worked. This case was a valid reason to use Chrome, instead of Duck Duck Go, my default.
Bunge, you might consider reading Zara’s link.
Do we know which is true?Not yet.
Do you trust anything from Vlad? Not my problem.
I trust that what Vlad says will be calculated to be self-serving.
I don’t know if he believes it.
I don’t know if he knows better but hopes it will sell–one category to the Russian people, another to the Russian power structure, another to the West–maybe two categories there.
I don’t know if there will be a sale or no sale.
I don’t know if what he says is for the history books, post-whatever this is justification.
And nobody knows what he’s going to do because, among other things, nobody knows what he thinks of sunk costs.
For example, what does he think the army will do if, after having been sent into the meat grinder under, in some cases, false pretenses and then he backs off. A sigh of relief, of course, but then an appraisal that it wasn’t that important to him anyway but he still got thousands killed for nothing. He didn’t bother to prep the battle space in all the ways that will appear Monday morning, all the thousands of assessments based on military science or common sense that weren’t done. Maybe they were attempted but didn’t work. But he went ahead anyway. And the Russian troops didn’t find any Nazis, anyway.
I have no idea what he’s going to conclude but the considerations in the preceding paragraph must occur to a canny KGB guy trained manipulate people.
So he’ll either back off, on the presumption he can survive that. Or he’ll double down, on the presumption he can survive that.
Man, I’m glad I went through that exercise.
I also quoted Vladimir Putin who may have a better grasp of Russian demographics that you do.
Since I’m not in charge of Russia’s census bureau, your remark is irrelevant.
Neo,
I would say it matters quite a bit what Putin thinks. I think that the Russians are in trouble in Ukraine, and he needs to find some sort of an exit strategy before it gets worse. The reason I brought up Sino-Russian relations is China is backing him now, but the two countries generally have fairly poor relations with each other. So, as he tries to mitigate the Ukrainian situation he needs to be looking East as well as West in his calculations. China will stab him in the back if it is their interests.
Regardless, this has drifted father off course than I expected. I’ll end with a video by two young guys who lived in China. At the start of the Ukranian War they did a video of their earlier travels along the Chinese/Russian border. They talk about the border and give a brief history of relations between the two countries. It is an interesting perspective.
What We Saw on the Russia/China Border – Why We Understand the Ukraine Invasion. (the last clause is a bit of hyperbole on their part)
ambisinistral,
It seems to me Taiwan and the South China Sea are more China’s immediate focus.
China isn’t going to back stab Russia as long as it’s focus is there. Unless something remarkable happens, say if Russia collapses and it is easy pickings with no reason to continue backing Putin.
Don,
I agree that they’re not likely to do anything overt to their north. I’m just saying that Putin has to factor that possibility into his calculations, and if Putin starts looking wobbly they’ll press their advantage as hard as they think they can get away with.
ambi. “He has to…..” If you say so. Problem is, what weight does he give it? If you really, really need something to be true, really really, you might end up believing it.
Hitler–not sure how this happened–was talking to Mannerheim and saying things like, “If someone had told me the Bolsheviks could manufacture three thousand tanks a month, I should have said they were mad.”
ed. note. Not sure the figure was 3k, but incomprehensibly above what Hitler thought–needed to think.
Maybe Putin would think a veiled warning about blowing the Three Gorges Dam would suffice. But Xi, needing to believe, would think the defenses plus the extra strengthening built in by the dam-building division of Evergrande made him safe.
Never forget the power of NEED to believe. And the worse the situation, the more power it has.
@ Aubrey > “Never forget the power of NEED to believe. And the worse the situation, the more power it has.”
Gonna put that on a t-shirt, or something.
@ Geoffrey > “the West’s current ideological leadership has far worse plans for us and, that Putin’s nationalism is currently an intransigent obstacle to the Left’s agenda of achieving global governance.”
Leaving aside ALL of the rest of the discussion, I think these points need some serious attention.
In that order.
Victor Davis Hanson, not quite so optimistic as in the post Neo featured earlier.
https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/30/joe-biden-and-the-uses-of-nihilism/#comment-5715773473
https://notthebee.com/article/last-night-biden-said-theres-going-to-be-a-new-world-order-out-there-and-weve-got-to-lead-it-but-the-fact-checkers-say-youre-a-conspiracy-nut-if-that-raises-any-red-flags
Connecting dots on my coloring pages.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2022/03/23/unknown-factor-the-russian-public-and-the-russian-military/#comment-2614782
@MBunge
Except treating a major power- especially a HOSTILE major power- does not translate into giving it anything it wants or “respecting” its interests or sphere of influence.
The US Navy has spent the best part of a century pruning the CCP’s pretensions to dominance of the South China Sea and its “Cow Tongue Map” Maritime Claims, to say nothing of its support for Taiwanese autonomy if not defacto independence. And of course let us not pretend the PRC and Putin’s Russia have been very respectful to our own “sphere” or “interests.”
Which is a fair point, and even I won’t claim that Putin is utterly crazy or that he acted for no reason.
He is, however, a brutal, tyrannical hypocrite who tends to be rather bad at playing nice (even with his own vassals or clients like Lukashenko in Minsk and Yanukovych during the time he ruled in Ukraine) and reacts to nation-states typically getting sick of him or otherwise trying to balance his power by getting out guns.
That doesn’t make the West’s current “leadership” good, but it does underline that the idea that all would be A-Ok if only we “treated Russia as a Great Power” doesn’t really work.
Agreed, but protecting NATO countries is a key component of US and Western European foreign policy. Moreover, nations that seek entry into NATO because of that prospect (as well as the clearly-evident fact that nations in NATO tend to be much less subject to nasty sectarian civil war, Russian invasion, or combos of the above than those outside of NATO) is an important component of US and Western European intelligence.
Very true. For my own part I knew about the Ukrainian Biolabs a fair ways ago and took a sizable chunk analyzing them in my first comment here.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2022/03/09/roundup-38/#comments
I concluded that they probably were not “Bioweapons Labs” (though still incredibly dangerous), and that the US Government/Medical Establishment was PROBABLY doing something shady and even corrupt with them, albeit probably on a minor level. Moreover, I knew they had been around for a long time (at least since 2006, thanks to a document preserved from a “The Sky Is Falling” site that seemed to have uncritically aped Kremlin propaganda but which still hosted a genuine document), and that Putin almost certainly had known about them since at least 2010 but had not made a point of them.
And when I learned that the likes of Nuland were insistent at trying to deny deny deny, that would just backfire.
Of course I could be wrong (I was about whether or not Putin would openly invade), but I didn’t listen to the MSM.
As someone who read about Vietnam (but whose area of expertise is the World Wars, meaning I study a lot more about the First Indochina War and its bleedover from WWII than most Americans) and lived through the Afghanistan era, I am still enraged at the degree to which the hard-core anti-American left have hijacked the narratives of both and Iraq.
Not to say that the US government cannot be dishonest or unethical (indeed, I concluded that it almost certainly was being so), but it probably means that the idea of a “Biological Cuban Missile Crisis” was hot air form the Kremlin looking for an excuse.
AesopFan
Thanks. I’m reminded of the early part of Men in Black…..”Why did you shoot Tiffany?”
…. Those guys were working out or had a cold or something. But a White girl in ghetto this time of night with books on nuclear physics? Something was not right….
We have many threats and yes Putin is a genuine bad dude, worse than Cornpop, even. But my intuitive guess is the new world order, Devo’s group, reset society for its own good people, need to be at the top of the list. Lots of bad actors, but most disconcerting are those, like the Blackrock CEO who wants to change our behavior. One of the elites just donated $275 million to Planned parenthood.
The best protection is embracing truth and beauty, and the source of truth and beauty. It’s hard to cheat an honest man.