Geopolitics in the 2020s.

[ICTChris]

The US Embassy is sending a number of diplomats back to the US and has recommended not travelling in the country due to the threat of Russian invasion.

The US Embassay in Azerbijan made a similar announcement in 2020 and two days later the war in Karabakh began.

[welshbairn]

14 hours ago, ICTChris said:

I think that Russia are more concerned with the situation in Ukraine now rather than some ethereal long term plan to regain Russian influence in Poland. Russia is concerned with the people in charge of Ukraine now, they want to change the direction of the country and they’ve tried to change it in a number of ways. The final way would be to invade or to use the phrase they’ve been using launch a “military technical response”.

One thing I’m interested in reading is an assessment of how Ukraine should attempt to defend itself. All assessments, and common sense, says they can’t defeat Russia but what are their best strategies for dealing with attack? What approach will they take, how can they protect their assets while inflicting maximum damage in Russian forces? With great difficulty I imagine.

My guess is they'll either do nothing militarily or they'll formally annex Donbass with a big show of force if Ukraine tries to do anything about it. Trying to occupy the whole country with an unpopular puppet regime would be hugely expensive in resources and manpower and the international response would make it even more unsustainable. For some serious drama they could maybe take Odessa and link it to Transnistria and  Crimea, but that would invite the same kind of international response as trying to take Kiev. If they stick to the Eastern region that is already beyond Kiev's control I'd expect the Western response to be fairly muted.

Edited January 24, 2022 by welshbairn

[Detournement]

The winter Olympics start on the 4th of February. 

If the CIA are crazy enough to try and take the Donbass it will be timed to take the shine off China's Olympics once again. 

The positive thing is that the posturing of the USA and UK over the past week doesn't seem to have gone down very well in the EU or the Ukraine itself. I don't think the average Ukranian would have been too happy to hear the CIA bragging about plans to "make Russia bleed in a guerilla war on Ukranian soil". It's probably not how they would rather spend 2022. 

[welshbairn]

7 minutes ago, Detournement said:

The winter Olympics start on the 4th of February. 

If the CIA are crazy enough to try and take the Donbass it will be timed to take the shine off China's Olympics once again. 

The positive thing is that the posturing of the USA and UK over the past week doesn't seem to have gone down very well in the EU or the Ukraine itself. I don't think the average Ukranian would have been too happy to hear the CIA bragging about plans to "make Russia bleed in a guerilla war on Ukranian soil". It's probably not how they would rather spend 2022. 

?

[Genuine Hibs Fan]

Dorlomins new Twitter account going well 

 

[NotThePars]

Love to be like 30 talking about “tankies”

[Detournement]

The thing about the Tankie insult now is that it's supposed to mean that you would have supported the Soviet Union putting down the Hungarian uprising.

However at roughly the same time the twats that use the insult would have 100% been supporting the US led coup in Guatemala, the invasion of Egypt by France and the UK, France murdering hundreds of thousands of Algerians and putting over a million in concentration camps, the UK doing the same thing on a slightly smaller scale in Kenya and Malaysia and the USA killing 1/4 of the population of North Korea and fully destroying every city and town. 

And that's only 1953-54.

Edited January 24, 2022 by Detournement

[Detournement]

3 hours ago, welshbairn said:

?

From the Yahoo article I linked to the other day. 

[Theyellowbox]

Because Russia is using this Ukraine situation as a smokescreen to deflect from increasing domestic unhappiness and to keep the people at home patriotically happy via a foreign war/conquest/reclaim,  it's difficult to predict what kind of offensive they'd make, but at all costs, they do not want soldiers en mass coming back in body bags as that completely undoes what they are trying to achieve inside Russia.

Gut feel is that they will do something smaller than we all think, but portray it as a massive military win back home. If Ukraine reacts in any way, then it is spun as terrorism against Russia, so win win for Putin.

[welshbairn]

23 minutes ago, Detournement said:

The thing about the Tankie insult now is that it's supposed to mean that you would have supported the Soviet Union putting down the Hungarian uprising.

However at roughly the same time the twats that use the insult would have 100% been supporting the US led coup in Guatemala, the invasion of Egypt by France and the UK, France murdering hundreds of thousands of Algerians and putting over a million in concentration camps, the UK doing the same thing on a slightly smaller scale in Kenya and Malaysia and the USA killing 1/4 of the population of North Korea and fully destroying every city and town. 

And that's only 1953-54.

It's quite possible to condemn all of these events, whataboutery doesn't justify anything unless you're in a children's playground.

[DiegoDiego]

Because Russia is using this Ukraine situation as a smokescreen to deflect from increasing domestic unhappiness and to keep the people at home patriotically happy via a foreign war/conquest/reclaim

It's very debatable that those would be the main reasons for an invasion.

[Theyellowbox]

9 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:

 

It's very debatable that those would be the main reasons for an invasion.

Not the only reasons, but certainly a part of it. Russia wouldn't be going to Ukraine for anything economically, so it is all about show of strength domestically and internationally.

 

[ICTChris]

I don't think that Russia are going to invade Ukraine in some Wag The Dog style ruse to distract from Russian domestic politics.  Russia wants a government in Ukraine that is more favourable to Russia but for the last 15-20 years the country has been going, more or less, in a direction away from that.  

I don't think there's any evidence that Putin is becoming increasingly unpopular or that he's in any way threatened at home.  There are occasional protests that flare up - last year there was a series of protests in the East of the country after the dismissal of a provincial governer but nothing organised in terms of opposing the current government.

 

[welshbairn]

27 minutes ago, Theyellowbox said:

Not the only reasons, but certainly a part of it. Russia wouldn't be going to Ukraine for anything economically, so it is all about show of strength domestically and internationally.

 

I think it's Putin's legacy he's thinking about, reuniting the Russian speaking peoples under one flag. I could see him making use of Russian minorities in the Baltics to stir things up there too. 

[Detournement]

57 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

It's quite possible to condemn all of these events, whataboutery doesn't justify anything unless you're in a children's playground.

The Tankie insult isn't about condemnation. The only way to avoid being called a Tankie in 1954 was to withdraw all support from the Soviet Union, renounce the Soviet system of government and break with the western European communist parties.

Not a single prominent liberal or social democrat ever seems to have looked at any atrocity committed by the USA and it's vassals and decided that liberal democracy must be renounced despite the astronomical bodycount.

 

[DiegoDiego]

What Chris and Welshbairn said. Plus take a look at Russia's borders, Caucuses aside, they're indefensible. Their one with Kazakhstan is the longest contiguous one in the world. They need buffer zones far more than most. They lost Moscow to the French for f**k's sake!

[welshbairn]

26 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

I don't think that Russia are going to invade Ukraine in some Wag The Dog style ruse to distract from Russian domestic politics.  Russia wants a government in Ukraine that is more favourable to Russia but for the last 15-20 years the country has been going, more or less, in a direction away from that.  

I don't think there's any evidence that Putin is becoming increasingly unpopular or that he's in any way threatened at home.  There are occasional protests that flare up - last year there was a series of protests in the East of the country after the dismissal of a provincial governer but nothing organised in terms of opposing the current government.

 

Navalny's even more of an ethnonationalist and populist than Putin is, anyway.

[Theyellowbox]

28 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

I think it's Putin's legacy he's thinking about, reuniting the Russian speaking peoples under one flag. I could see him making use of Russian minorities in the Baltics to stir things up there too. 

I think that is fair. It's a fair old risk to take though in case it goes wrong. I'd assume Moscow is banking on not much military resistance for whatever they decide to do.

I think though there will be a bit if playing to a domestic audience. This would be very popular in Russia and as you say, helps his legacy. 

[Detournement]

17 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:

What Chris and Welshbairn said. Plus take a look at Russia's borders, Caucuses aside, they're indefensible. Their one with Kazakhstan is the longest contiguous one in the world. They need buffer zones far more than most. They lost Moscow to the French for f**k's sake!

Are they though?

Operation Barbarossa involved 3 million Germans at a time when the USSR (or any other country) had very little defensive technology. The idea that NATO is going to roll battalions of tanks across the Steppe is ludicrous. 

Any attempt to flip Russia into the US Empire will involve weakening it economically and politically until the people want a government that bends the knee to Washington. They could have had this in the 90s if it wasn't for the crackpot right wing economists that imposed shock therapy. There won't be another opportunity. 

[welshbairn]

11 minutes ago, Detournement said:

This is utterly retarded. 

Just read his blog I linked to a couple of pages ago.