crateless (u/crateless)

crateless commented on Finland and Sweden set to join NATO as soon as summer thetimes.co.uk/article/fi... · Posted by u/mzs

klawcode · 3 years ago

I trust Finland and Sweden's analysis. That more than anything else solidified my trust in the NATO position on Ukraine.

If Finland and Sweden remained neutral throughout the entire cold war and yet now are openly considering NATO membership, it means something.

crateless · 3 years ago

As long as they go into it fully informed, that is the best one could hope for.

crateless commented on Finland and Sweden set to join NATO as soon as summer thetimes.co.uk/article/fi... · Posted by u/mzs

fsloth · 3 years ago

Russia is bullshitting - they are not afraid NATO would invade them.

The balance of fear due to nuclear weapons if nothing else guarantees this.

Russia is opposed to the fact it can't bully it's weaker neighbours on a whim if they are in NATO. That is the cause for their irritation.

crateless · 3 years ago

Well, they have been bullshitting for loooong time if that is the case. I recall watching a video of Gorbachev talking to the US Congress and warning about NATO/US expansion. This was in 1997.

There is no credible threat of a NATO invasion but there is the First-Strike issue now that hypersonic missiles are being developed. Putin has been moaning about this for a while now. A security-conscious/pragmatic state models "what is possible" vs "what is probable". If it seems likely that future Finland could host hypersonic missiles pointed at St.Petersburg, well it becomes incumbent on Moscow to attempt to prevent that. It seems unwise to dismiss their concerns if said dismissal would lead to Ukraine 2.0.

Lots of people seem to think that the Russian unwillingness to flatten Kiev means they could not do it.

How many people have to die for Finns to feel like they stood up to a bully?

crateless commented on Finland and Sweden set to join NATO as soon as summer thetimes.co.uk/article/fi... · Posted by u/mzs

fsloth · 3 years ago

"the only reason Finland would find themselves in conflict is if they joined NATO."

No, Russia does not want to engage in conflict with a NATO country. If Finland joins NATO then Finland will be at piece for the next century, guaranteed.

I don't understand where this logic "if Finland joins NATO then Russia will invade it". That is backward logic. Russia has very little reason to invade Finland now, and if Finland joins NATO, it cannot.

crateless · 3 years ago

> Russia does not want to engage in conflict with a NATO country. If Finland joins NATO then Finland will be at piece for the next century, guaranteed.

Russia has not engaged in conflict with a NATO country, so far. If the stakes are raised high enough, I don't think this will continue to hold.

> Russia has very little reason to invade Finland now, and if Finland joins NATO, it cannot.

I would go so far as to say that if Finland applies to join NATO, they'd have to. That is, if it is truly part of their doctrine that NATO/US is an existential threat to the Russian state.

crateless commented on Finland and Sweden set to join NATO as soon as summer thetimes.co.uk/article/fi... · Posted by u/mzs

droopyEyelids · 3 years ago

The interesting and difficult thing to process here is whether this is a provocation without turning it into 'whatabboutism'

John Mearsheimer made the analogy "What if China became close allies with Canada and stationed troops and missiles north of the border, how would the USA react?"

Joining NATO means millitary bases, troop exercises, and 'defensive' missile installations that can be easily converted to offensive missiles without any visibility.

From that perspective, avoiding the issue of morality and legality, it seems like a terrifying step towards war between nuclear-armed powers.

crateless · 3 years ago

Following the Kremlin's logic, the advent of hypersonic missiles and the neoconservative bent of US/EU politics, it is seemingly inevitable that war is here.

crateless commented on Finland and Sweden set to join NATO as soon as summer thetimes.co.uk/article/fi... · Posted by u/mzs

alex_duf · 3 years ago

The main power of NATO is dissuasion, and I assume (maybe naively) that it's hard to measure dissuasion.

crateless · 3 years ago

Qaddafi would like a word.

crateless commented on Finland and Sweden set to join NATO as soon as summer thetimes.co.uk/article/fi... · Posted by u/mzs

crateless · 3 years ago

It is better to call Putin's bluff now rather than wait for Ukraine to fall which might force cooler heads to prevail. Also a dual ascension dares Russia to go to war on two perhaps three fronts?

For Russia, the choice is: war now or war later?

Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war.

crateless commented on Are We Sleepwalking into Wwiii? · Posted by u/smartidiot

kstenerud · 3 years ago

Yes, we are sleepwalking into WW3, much in the same way we sleepwalked into WW2. The West has completely misunderstood Putin, and will continue to do so until it's too late to stop these events (a strong show of force and a no-fly-zone would have stopped this, but it's too late now). Scholz is the Chamberlain of our age.

Putin aims for territorial expansion to reclaim the USSR plus some buffer space, and to secure Russia's place as a world power again. This must happen by force since Russian economic and cultural influences are insufficient.

Nothing will dissuade Putin from his aims, as he believes this to be an existential crisis that threatens the very existence of Russia if he doesn't act now.

He started on this adventure because of bad intel from the FSB about his armed forces, Ukrainian resistance, and world reaction. The plans were modeled after Operation Danube ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact_invasion_of_Czecho... ), and were supposed to become a fait accompli so that there'd be nothing for the West to do, like all the other times before. Except it didn't work out that way this time. It's far too late to stop now; either he wins, or Russian ambition is destroyed forever. Granted, the ambition has been reduced to only Donbas, but he still needs to walk away with territory and then prepare for his next slice.

You can read it in Karaganov's own words here: https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/ukraine/2022/04/ru...

But even if this goes so far that actual nukes start flying (an iffy proposition even for him), the first ones will land in Ukraine as a warning.

crateless · 3 years ago

> a strong show of force and a no-fly-zone would have stopped this, but it's too late now. Scholz is the Chamberlain of our age.

It's not too late to put up a no-fly zone. If it was ok then, why is it not ok now?

crateless commented on Why Mearsheimer’s Realist Take Is So Exasperating tompepinsky.com/2022/03/0... · Posted by u/LichenStone

SideburnsOfDoom · 3 years ago

Cart before the horse, cause before effect, really.

Russia's belligerence towards nations that should be allowed to freely choose their own path, has sent them all running towards EU and NATO.

crateless · 3 years ago

Of course nations should be free to choose their own path. No-one is arguing against that.

Mearsheimer argues that when the path that a country chooses comes into conflict with a great power's security interests, those interests become the overriding concern of both parties. He points out that Cuba was not allowed to ally itself with USSR with nuclear war being put on the table.

I can't help but wonder what the US would do if Mexico signed a security pact with China to put a military base on its soil.

As a minor example consider the Solomon islands brouhaha[1].

[1]. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-60896824

crateless commented on Why Mearsheimer’s Realist Take Is So Exasperating tompepinsky.com/2022/03/0... · Posted by u/LichenStone

Arnt · 3 years ago

Uhm, "the thing they predicted" is NATO expansion ("the heart of the strategy" in Mearsheimer's words), and the thing that's happened isn't a NATO base being established in Kharkiv. Far from it.

crateless · 3 years ago

CIA Director, William Burns wrote this in 2008.

Edit: Nyet means Nyet: Russia's NATO Enlargement Redlines : https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html

crateless commented on Mariupol's devastation: AP journalists document war's toll apnews.com/article/russia... · Posted by u/gmays

macintux · 3 years ago

It’s safe to say Ukraine is an existential threat to Putin. Russia as a nation shouldn’t care that Ukraine is democratic and integrating with Europe, except to ask why they couldn’t also.

crateless · 3 years ago

I don't see how Ukraine being democratic is an existential threat to Putin in any meaningful way. This situation has been almost 14 years in the reckoning since April 2008.

The NATO-US acting from Ukraine possibly attempting to foment "color" revolutions in Russia, NATO missiles on Ukraine soil, an increasingly belligerent leader in Ukraine renewing the push to join NATO and NATO-US arming and training Ukraine troops. These seem to be more likely factors in the invasion.

Given that the "West" has been frothing around the mouth for his ouster (he did once ask to join NATO btw), one could conclude that "He who goes first wins" was a viable strategy for him.