Yes, you've digressed nicely. Somewhere in all this you have a point?
You keep implying there is a moral symmetry between Russia's invasions of Ukraine and the west's responseâsupplying Ukraine with the means to resist those invasions. You've gone a bit beyond that, implying that supplying Ukraine with the means to resist those invasions is sinister, a direct threat to Russia justifying what can generously* called a preemptive war.
There is nothing Ukraine did or could have done to justify Russia's actions. Ukraine was not a threat to Russia. NATO was not a threat to anything but Russia's ambitions of once again dominating eastern Europe.
*Generous to Russia. Outside of Planet Putinâwhere all that matters are Russia's goals, and arguments like yours are just dust to fling in the air to obscure what is plainly happeningâthe attacks on Ukraine are an imperial war of conquest. Something the world had hoped it had seen the last of.
I see, you got nowhere and so it's time to change the subject again. I thought we were doing "But Russia = War crimes!" after suggested US malfeasance.
Ah yes, switch to morality, where you (personally) no doubt claim to hold the high ground.
Nicely qualified/hedged. So then we can argue over what constitutes "a legitimate military target" and who defines/decides/ignores that.
Barton Gellman, a staff writer for the Washington Post, writing
soon after the 1991 conflict, observed that: âSome targets, especially
later in the war, were bombed primarily to create postwar leverage over
Iraq, not to influence the course of the conflict itself.â Gellman
quoted Colonel John A Warden, deputy director of Air Force strategy,
doctrine and plans: âOne purpose of destroying Iraqâs electrical grid
was that you have imposed a long-term problem on the leadership that it
has to deal with sometime.â Gellman added: âIt gives us long-term
leverage.â
To state the obvious: without an electrical grid, there are no functioning water/sewer plants, hospitals, etc., etc.
Yes, you've digressed nicely. Somewhere in all this you have a point?
You keep implying there is a moral symmetry between Russia's invasions of Ukraine and the west's response—supplying Ukraine with the means to resist those invasions. You've gone a bit beyond that, implying that supplying Ukraine with the means to resist those invasions is sinister, a direct threat to Russia justifying what can generously* called a preemptive war.
There is nothing Ukraine did or could have done to justify Russia's actions. Ukraine was not a threat to Russia. NATO was not a threat to anything but Russia's ambitions of once again dominating eastern Europe.
*Generous to Russia. Outside of Planet Putin—where all that matters are Russia's goals, and arguments like yours are just dust to fling in the air to obscure what is plainly happening—the attacks on Ukraine are an imperial war of conquest. Something the world had hoped it had seen the last of.
Nicely qualified/hedged. So then we can argue over what constitutes "a legitimate military target" and who defines/decides/ignores that.
Barton Gellman, a staff writer for the Washington Post, writing
soon after the 1991 conflict, observed that: âSome targets, especially
later in the war, were bombed primarily to create postwar leverage over
Iraq, not to influence the course of the conflict itself.â Gellman
quoted Colonel John A Warden, deputy director of Air Force strategy,
doctrine and plans: âOne purpose of destroying Iraqâs electrical grid
was that you have imposed a long-term problem on the leadership that it
has to deal with sometime.â Gellman added: âIt gives us long-term
leverage.â
To state the obvious: without an electrical grid, there are no functioning water/sewer plants, hospitals, etc., etc.
Um...I just condemned an attack on civilian energy infrastructure. Do you need help finding that? Does that represent your position (on Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure)?
Why is it so hard for you to state in plain language what you support?
Read it again. It's a bad thing, right? Whoever does it?
Probably the same answer you'd give if I asked you about the US' attack on power grids (regardless of whether the war itself, yadda, yadda, yadda). A bad thing, right?
Um...I just condemned an attack on civilian energy infrastructure. Do you need help finding that? Does that represent your position (on Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure)?
Why is it so hard for you to state in plain language what you support?
Nice pivot! Bravo!
Now, are Russia's attacks on Ukraine's power grid legitimate acts of war (regardless of whether the war itself is legitimate; you haven't explicitly endorsed Russia's invasion/occupation but you sure hint at that a lot) or not?
If you want to get around to saying the quiet part out loudâendorsing Putin's "special military operation"âyou're welcome to do that too.
Probably the same answer you'd give if I asked you about the US' attack on power grids (regardless of whether the war itself, yadda, yadda, yadda). A bad thing, right?
For a history of US Air Force (USAF) strategy in attacking electric
generation and distribution grids, read this USAF University thesis,
entitled âStrategic Attack of National Electrical Systemsâ, dated 1994:
âThe USAF has long favoured attacking electrical power systems.
Electric power has been considered a critical target in every war since
World War II, and will likely be nominated in the future⦠The evidence
shows that the only sound reason for attacking electrical power is to
affect the production of war materiel in a war of attrition against a
self-supporting nation-state without outside assistance.â
Nice pivot! Bravo!
Now, are Russia's attacks on Ukraine's power grid legitimate acts of war (regardless of whether the war itself is legitimate; you haven't explicitly endorsed Russia's invasion/occupation but you sure hint at that a lot) or not?
If you want to get around to saying the quiet part out loudâendorsing Putin's "special military operation"âyou're welcome to do that too.
For a history of US Air Force (USAF) strategy in attacking electric
generation and distribution grids, read this USAF University thesis,
entitled âStrategic Attack of National Electrical Systemsâ, dated 1994:
âThe USAF has long favoured attacking electrical power systems.
Electric power has been considered a critical target in every war since
World War II, and will likely be nominated in the future⦠The evidence
shows that the only sound reason for attacking electrical power is to
affect the production of war materiel in a war of attrition against a
self-supporting nation-state without outside assistance.â
If Hersh's report is accurate (and he has a pretty good track record) this was a colossally stupid, counterproductive act against civilian infrastructure, unconcerned about the inevitable suffering this would cause the civilian population . They ended a hostage situation by killing the hostage.
Do I take then that you whole-heartedly condemn attacks against civilian energy infrastructure in general? These, say, which started two weeks before the Nordstream sabotage? They are part of a wider pattern of attacks which have been going on in one form or another since 2015.
In the past few years of East-West crisis, the U.S. military has vastly expanded its presence inside Norway, whose western border runs 1,400 miles along the north Atlantic Ocean and merges above the Arctic Circle with Russia. The Pentagon has created high paying jobs and contracts, amid some local controversy, by investing hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade and expand American Navy and Air Force facilities in Norway. The new works included, most importantly, an advanced synthetic aperture radar far up north that was capable of penetrating deep into Russia and came online just as the American intelligence community lost access to a series of long-range listening sites inside China.
In return, the Norwegian government angered liberals and some moderates in its parliament last November by passing the Supplementary Defense Cooperation Agreement (SDCA). Under the new deal, the U.S. legal system would have jurisdiction in certain âagreed areasâ in the North over American soldiers accused of crimes off base, as well as over those Norwegian citizens accused or suspected of interfering with the work at the base.
Norway was one of the original signatories of the NATO Treaty in 1949, in the early days of the Cold War. Today, the supreme commander of NATO is Jens Stoltenberg, a committed anti-communist, who served as Norwayâs prime minister for eight years before moving to his high NATO post, with American backing, in 2014. He was a hardliner on all things Putin and Russia who had cooperated with the American intelligence community since the Vietnam War. He has been trusted completely since. âHe is the glove that fits the American hand,â the source said.
Back in Washington, planners knew they had to go to Norway. âThey hated the Russians, and the Norwegian navy was full of superb sailors and divers who had generations of experience in highly profitable deep-sea oil and gas exploration,â the source said. They also could be trusted to keep the mission secret. (The Norwegians may have had other interests as well. The destruction of Nord Streamâif the Americans could pull it offâwould allow Norway to sell vastly more of its own natural gas to Europe.)
I like to imagine my edits above are over-the-top.
Your analysis is spot-on, don't get me wrong. But our house is made of glass: we have done tremendous damage to our standing in recent years.
Peace,
c.
ha.. not entirely without merit. But the US constantly shows that its merit lies in its flux. Despite appearances to the contrary, it is a very vibrant political system. Russia, by contrast, is sclerotic in the extreme.
How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline The New York Times called it a âmystery,â but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secretâuntil now Seymour Hersch
Asked for comment, Adrienne Watson, a White House spokesperson, said in an email, âThis is false and complete fiction.â Tammy Thorp, a spokesperson for the Central Intelligence Agency, similarly wrote: âThis claim is completely and utterly false.â
well, we are almost one year down the road since the invasion last February and my take on Russia the USA hasn't changed.
The Soviet US system of two-party rule is moribund, out-dated, failing on most metrics of good government and has entered its death throes - just the Russian US people haven't quite realised it yet.
—-
—-
The next best alternative would be at least a leader who doesn't threaten Russia's US' neighbours and learns how to play a cooperative role rather than an adversarial one in the geopolitical setting. One can only hope.
I like to imagine my edits above are over-the-top.
Your analysis is spot-on, don't get me wrong. But our house is made of glass: we have done tremendous damage to our standing in recent years.
No, Weakening Russia Is Not âCosting Peanutsâ for the U.S. As support slips for military funding to Ukraine, some analysts argue that America is getting a great deal for its money. But there are a lot of strategic costs that donât show up on the balance sheet.
well, we are almost one year down the road since the invasion last February and my take on Russia hasn't changed. The Soviet system of one-party rule is moribund, out-dated, failing on most metrics of good government and has entered its death throes - just the Russian people haven't quite realised it yet. It should have died in 1989 when most of its satellite states made the sometimes painful transition to pluralism, but in Russia it was instead resurrected by a member of the KGB, who appears to be personally affronted by the failings of the system he grew up in. He was given the room to breathe and flourish by European states, most notably Germany, who were happy to buy Russian oil and gas and mistakenly thought they could cash in by expanding their business empires into Russia, and, via business networks, keep Russia in check, totally ignoring Russian grievances and its understanding of itself as a world power done wrong by history. Well, that policy blew up in their faces big time. Basically, the whole thing is tragic and Ukraine is now bearing the cost of the failures of past European policy, again mostly led by Germany. So where to now? Russia is setting itself up to be humiliated (it already is being humiliated). IMO, this is entirely of its own doing as it seems intent on proving (to itself) that its system of one party tsarist rule is inherently superior to pluralism. You could blame Putin for this, but that would be mistaken. He is just an expression of a long Russian history, which is still trying to transition from tsarist rule-by-decree feudalism to rules-based democratic pluralism. As just one point of anecdotal evidence, I table Medvedev's comments about the Japanese prime minister, Japan, back in the day, being another imperialist country bent on dominion that was forced to learn the error of its ways, also at the cost immense personal suffering (most of which borne by its neighbours). Something about this constellation between the US and Japan obviously triggered him big time. So should Russia be similarly humiliated? I hope not, but it is hard to envision a change in their mindset without the people realising their system is failing due to its own internal contradictions. With massive revenue from oil and gas and glorification of Russia as a quasi-religious entity deeply ingrained in their culture, there seems to be little incentive for them to make any fundamental change. Moreover, the understanding for the need for a cultural reset must come from inside the country. I don't think you can easily impose this from outside, without creating a whole new set of grievances. I am not sure why I think this, and Japan seems to be an obvious example of the contrary, but for some reason I do. Thus the current policy of avoiding open conflict between NATO and Russia seems to me to be the best way forward. However, I don't understand why there should be any restrictions on arming Ukraine. Europe in particular should stick by the principle of a sovereign nation having the right to arm itself to the hilt to defend itself from a foreign aggressor. Ukraine should be given all the tools it needs to do this. At present Ukraine is being forced to fight off the invasion with one hand tied behind its back, which is patently unfair and only prolonging the agony. One can only hope that whoever succeeds Putin initiates a managed transition to pluralism the way most eastern European states have managed it, but I fear this point is a long way down the road. The next best alternative would be at least a leader who doesn't threaten Russia's neighbours and learns how to play a cooperative role rather than an adversarial one in the geopolitical setting. One can only hope.
Agreed on all counts... this alternative perspective might interest you:
well, we are almost one year down the road since the invasion last February and my take on Russia hasn't changed.
The Soviet system of one-party rule is moribund, out-dated, failing on most metrics of good government and has entered its death throes - just the Russian people haven't quite realised it yet.
It should have died in 1989 when most of its satellite states made the sometimes painful transition to pluralism, but in Russia it was instead resurrected by a member of the KGB, who appears to be personally affronted by the failings of the system he grew up in. He was given the room to breathe and flourish by European states, most notably Germany, who were happy to buy Russian oil and gas and mistakenly thought they could cash in by expanding their business empires into Russia, and, via business networks, keep Russia in check, totally ignoring Russian grievances and its understanding of itself as a world power done wrong by history.
Well, that policy blew up in their faces big time. Basically, the whole thing is tragic and Ukraine is now bearing the cost of the failures of past European policy, again mostly led by Germany.
So where to now? Russia is setting itself up to be humiliated (it already is being humiliated). IMO, this is entirely of its own doing as it seems intent on proving (to itself) that its system of one party tsarist rule is inherently superior to pluralism. You could blame Putin for this, but that would be mistaken. He is just an expression of a long Russian history, which is still trying to transition from tsarist rule-by-decree feudalism to rules-based democratic pluralism.
As just one point of anecdotal evidence, I table Medvedev's comments about the Japanese prime minister, Japan, back in the day, being another imperialist country bent on dominion that was forced to learn the error of its ways, also at the cost immense personal suffering (most of which borne by its neighbours). Something about this constellation between the US and Japan obviously triggered him big time.
So should Russia be similarly humiliated? I hope not, but it is hard to envision a change in their mindset without the people realising their system is failing due to its own internal contradictions. With massive revenue from oil and gas and glorification of Russia as a quasi-religious entity deeply ingrained in their culture, there seems to be little incentive for them to make any fundamental change. Moreover, the understanding for the need for a cultural reset must come from inside the country. I don't think you can easily impose this from outside, without creating a whole new set of grievances. I am not sure why I think this, and Japan seems to be an obvious example of the contrary, but for some reason I do.
Thus the current policy of avoiding open conflict between NATO and Russia seems to me to be the best way forward. However, I don't understand why there should be any restrictions on arming Ukraine. Europe in particular should stick by the principle of a sovereign nation having the right to arm itself to the hilt to defend itself from a foreign aggressor. Ukraine should be given all the tools it needs to do this. At present Ukraine is being forced to fight off the invasion with one hand tied behind its back, which is patently unfair and only prolonging the agony.
One can only hope that whoever succeeds Putin initiates a managed transition to pluralism the way most eastern European states have managed it, but I fear this point is a long way down the road. The next best alternative would be at least a leader who doesn't threaten Russia's neighbours and learns how to play a cooperative role rather than an adversarial one in the geopolitical setting. One can only hope.
They make five claims:
1) That's a lot of money
2) Not An Offensive Threat To Us
3) Russia Isnât Our Enemy
4) Weâre Not Destroying The Russian Military
5) Weaking Russia Doesnât Help Us
I'll take this one at a time.
1) Clearly it's a lot of money, and yes it's more than Russia spends. The economics of defense spending are more complex than just translating rubles to dollars; I'll let an actual defense economist explain that, but one claim is that it's "nearly 9x the cost of a border wall that would actually protect America."
The border wall has cost (so far) $11B to build 458 miles (of 1,9510). At this rate it will cost an additional $36B to finish, assuming costs don't rise as the more-difficult (and largely roadless) sections got built. That the wall would "actually protect America" is pretty farcical, but let's do the math they're alluding to here:$100B is 2.8X $36B, not 9X.
If it seems unfair somehow that Russia is being outspent by the allies of the country it invaded then maybe Russia should stick to invading countries that can't fight back or find allies. It could invade Georgia again, say. Or kill some more Chechens.
2) Russia is not an offensive threat to the US...unless you count all the nuclear weapons it (by which I mean Putin) keeps threatening to launch at us. It is however a dire threat to our allies. They understand this even if many of us don't, and are contributing vastly more to Ukraine's defense (as a fraction of GDP) than we are. Whichever familiar anti-American trope you want to trot out about US defense aid (it''s just welfare for arms manufacturers/oil companies/a way to extend US hegemony over the rest of the world) how does that motivate, say, Estonia?
4) The argument that Russia's military isn't being destroyed because they can always build more tanks ignores that those tanks (and missiles and aircraft and artillery shells and Iranian drones) need to be paid for. Russia was already struggling with that. It is pulling T-62 tanks out of mothballs because it can't build as fast as they are being destroyed and abandoned.
The same goes for aircraft, ships, and other high-value hardware.
5) What is Russia using its strength for? Keeping a lid on dissent within its empire and bullying it's neighbors. If Russia's military hold over its vassal states weakens (and there are signs that is happening already) that empire could fly apart, and what happens with the shards is anybody's guess. When Iraq and Libya lost their strongman dictators the countries descended into war and chaos, chaos that wasn't contained to their borders. That is an outcome the world dreads, as it values stability more than the aspirations of the people under the thumbs of dictators.
But that isn't up to us, it's up to Russia. If Russia abandons its attempt to conquer Ukraine it will lose prestige, a Black Sea naval base, and various members of its leadership may be defenestrated, but other than the appalling cost it imposed on itself it won't lose anything that actually belonged to it. Withdrawing from Ukraine could free up troops and tanks to keep what remains of its empire in line. It can still sell gas to Europe (tho not as much as it used to) and return to selling oil and grain and weapons to the rest of the world. It can still prop up friendly dictators in Syria and Cuba and Venezuela, but if Russia has few friends around the world that's on Russia, not us.
