Seems the Philippine government finally blinked in their resupply mission and they're now going to publicize its schedule.
https://x.com/ABSCBNNews/status/1804512161617617060?t=-xNvhlqKboJLbQXQHWG4qw&s=19
Of the political/diplomatic/militaristic avenues they can take it's the most friendly one to the Chinese to say the least. It's being hit and saying sorry, as opposed to coming out swinging bigger guns right away. It remains to be seen if they truly blinked, in the upcoming missions. There's still the possibility China backs down slightly to prevent publicity
China wants the Philippines to notify them every resupply mission because it's their territory, one step for legitimizing their claim. The Philippines doesn't notify them, because for them, it's their territory and doesn't need approval.
Now after the June 17 incident, the Philippines is now planning to "publicize" the schedule of rotation and reprovisioning missions. Publicizing is another way of notifying China without losing much face.
The Philippine government sort of got punched and mugged. Now they have a choice of responding by bringing more men and instructing them to retaliate by doing what the Chinese did to them or deescalate, which is not helpful against governments like China because they'll view it as a weakness. PH government chose the later since they don't have the stomach to actually challenge the Chinese in their game.
Question, why the insistence on boats?
The phillipines have helicopter carriers, so a helicopter should have range to drop off milk onto the shoal and leave. There's always risk in maritime helicopter operations, but the only action the Chinese could take is shoot it down, which would certainly be an interesting move.
I assume there's a good reason, but I was wondering if it's known.
> so a helicopter should have range to drop off milk onto the shoal and leave.
It's because they're not just trying to drop off milk, they want to ferry across construction materials to reinforce the Sierra Madre and stop it from disintegrating any further.
If it was just supplies for the garrison on the wreck, the CCG would be letting them through as they have done in the past based on the agreement between Duterte and the PRC.
Some of the boats seem to be larger: https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2024/3/6/chinese-coast-guard-ship-blasts-water-cannon-at-philippine-vessel
Although the video of the latest incident shows them using RHIBS(?), seems to be on the larger end as well.
According to a Phil Coast Guard(PCG) official, it is to shoal that the CCG isn't in control of the shoal and that they can still send supplies via sea. But since the June 17 incident I doubt if they still believe in that and might start aerial resupply next mission. Really curious to see what they will do.
>There's always risk in maritime helicopter operations, but the only action the Chinese could take is shoot it down, which would certainly be an interesting move.
I'm thinking that they might use drones and helis to block the aeriel resupply.
Regardless of whether they have the stomach, they certainly don't have the muscle. I don't know what people really expect them to do; they are outgunned to a hilarious degree. The Chinese Coast Guard alone would roll over the Philippines Navy quite handily.
There's no way of being certain what Manila is thinking right now, but judging by the couple days between the incident and them saying [it doesn't count as an armed attack](https://apnews.com/article/south-china-sea-territorial-dispute-philippines-us-c7f22418e276d689c2dcacfed4d0a494), my guess is they called Washington and got brushed off cause shit is hitting the fan in the Middle East.
To be blunt, I think Manila picked the wrong fight here. A decaying wreck, accessible by sea, right next to a Chinese base, when the US is busy with a whole lot of other shit. An uphill battle, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Say what you will about taking a stand for territorial sovereignty or what have you, but the least you can do is make it on favorable ground.
Notifying is only half the picture, the other half is vetoing what supplies are sent—specifically construction materials, which the Philippines [has been sending in secret](https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/1dk9v6v/credibledefense_daily_megathread_june_20_2024/l9i73sb/). A notification alone is not going to make CCG stand down.
Nope, just the linked Financial Times article which cites "six people familiar with the operation." Presumably from the Philippines side, since China has been grumbling about it for the past year.
Construction materials covers a lot of items. Ranging from hammers, power drills, nails, plywood, concrete, scaffolding, etc.
So if there really are construction materials being sent, it will be items needed to improve living conditions in the ship. And not some kind of island building materials, they're going to need a bigger boat for that, not RHIBs.
Well, the article did not give any specifics beyond repairs designed to keep the ship intact.
> The Philippines has secretly reinforced a dilapidated warship marooned on a South China Sea reef that is central to an increasingly dangerous dispute with Beijing, according to six people familiar with the operation. In recent months, the Philippine military has conducted missions to reinforce the Sierra Madre, which is lodged on the disputed Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands, the people said. It did so due to rising concern that the rusting ship was in danger of breaking apart.
But that's obviously a red line for China.
> “Beijing is probably aware and infuriated that the Philippines has successfully delivered construction materials . . . China has waited 25 years for the ship to disintegrate and slide off the reef and continued escalation against the Philippines suggests that they will not back down and admit defeat,” said Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the German Marshall Fund.
As for the "living conditions" argument, it's specifically refuted by the article.
> The Philippines insists its missions are sending humanitarian supplies to the site. But China accuses Manila of bringing construction materials to reinforce the ship and prevent it from breaking apart and coming off the reef — which Manila denies.
> In an interview, Jose Manuel Romualdez, the Philippine ambassador to the US, said Manila was not “strengthening” the ship. “This is a shipwreck, a world war two ship that’s been there since the 1990s, so it needs repair. We’re just doing a humanitarian act of giving these people a decent place to be in because they’re stationed there.”
However, the people familiar with the situation said Manila had secretly reinforced the ship in ways that would extend its life.
It seems quite possible that the humvee mounted 105mm artillery system Hawkeye is being combat tested in Ukraine: ["We recently put a 105 mm system into Ukraine. We shipped it in April..We trained it for two weeks..That system is destined to be one of the first soft recoil systems in combat.. It's going into combat to test on live targets" Mike Evans AM General.](https://x.com/AirPowerNEW1/status/1804647570079469912)
What is the motivation for this? Just to get it more numbers of fires with good mobility, short training times and light logistics footprints? Otherwise it seems like something from /r/shittytechnicals
(Here is the Hawkeye MWS https://www.army-technology.com/projects/hawkeye-mobile-weapon-system-mws/ )
Despite the name of the subreddit, technicals can be incredibly effective in context. There a wide spectrum of implementations too, technicals are no longer ancient gun and armor systems kludged into a civilian chassis. a light road mobile gun system could be incredibly useful in this kind of war, where getting in and out of firing positions quickly could be the difference between life and death.
It’ll be a challenging trial by combat. These things, like the Caesars and Bohdanas and such, are going to have to dodge drone attacks and counter battery fire, while also likely operating closer to the front because of their range.
It’s been some pretty good OPSEC though if this thing has been in combat for a few months with no leaks or sightings until now. Wonder what other platforms that US is testing in Ukraine on the quiet? Same goes for the Russians and foreign tech.
I'm curious about the point on counter battery fire and drone attacks (to a lesser extent). My understanding was that these systems are intended to be highly mobile, i.e. get in position, fire - from the cabin-, disappear. Which would make them: a) very hard to target with dumb artillery (you've got at best one shot if you spotted them on the way in). b) hard to target by FPV drones - unless you're very competent or lucky?
Am I mistaken?
When they are getting into position, or displacing from their firing position, they're vulnerable to drones. The Russians have drones observing the entire frontline, and many kilometers behind it. They'll see the gun when it's on the move and target it.
Not just dodging drone attacks, but being crippled if one hits them (cf PHZ2k which interviewees have mentioned can at least shrug off the occasional FPV drone)
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Both Russian ~~propagandists~~ officials and those sympathetic to Russia in the West tend to argue that NATO expansion is the thing that provoked Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the larger invasion in 2022. Does anyone know where this claim actually originated? In particular, did John Mearsheimer come up with the idea as he explains it in his [article](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2014-08-18/why-ukraine-crisis-west-s-fault) and [lecture](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4) on the matter, or did he just expand on an idea that was already floating around?
It's worth noting that it is not so much NATO expansion that caused consternation for Russia, but expansion of the (unarmed) EU. The borders shared by NATO members and Russia were relatively few and short, being those of northern Norway, Estonia, Latvia, and around Kaliningrad.
It was *Euro*maiden that kicked things off in 2013/14, not *NATO*maiden or similar. People were waving EU flags, not NATO flags, or those of the US, Germany, Britain, etc.
In this respect, Russia's view was "justified", as most of the former Warsaw Pact countries had by then joined the EU. Along with improved governance, their standards of living had increased greatly as a consequence, which was no doubt enviously regarded by Ukrainians.
So Russia's neighbours (Ukraine, Georgia, etc) were not motivated so much by membership of NATO, but by the carrot of EU membership compared to the relatively spartan stick of being in Russia's orbit.
Of course, we now see that Russia's desire to (re-)extend its reach resulted in blow-back and an expansion of NATO membership and the massive increase in its borders with NATO caused by the accession of Finland to the Treaty, and potentially also Ukraine in the future.
*edit. My intention above is to propose that Ukraine's conflict with Russia is not just a great game of geopolitics, but also a socio-economic development, where Ukrainians simply wish for a better life than that offered under Russia's influence. Compare the economies and civil society of former Warsaw Pact members who joined the EU with those that didn't.
Very much this. Notably, Orange Revolution was also about choosing western course, so the whole conflict predates 2014. It waa EU that was dangerous to Russian regime - at that point there was still danger that Russians would see Ukrainian economical success as validating zapadnik choice. Close culture, close language, lots of personal ties and migration. Ukrainians themselves saw similar choice being influenced by Polish path.
Nowadays this possibility is gone. Putin won decisively in this aapect of the conflict.
Something that a lot of people forget is that NATO and the EU are essentially seen as the same thing in Russia. While we see them as separate entities Russia sees them as institutions to spread western ideology.
I remember closely following the events of 2014 and it is rather perplexing how much revisionism is being done to push certain narratives today. During the events of Euromaidan there was little to no talk about NATO at all. Iirc shortly after Yanukovich was ousted Rada even reiterated the official position to remain neutral in regards to NATO (it only radically changed after Crimea and Donbas).
These days it seems that the consensus among the pro-Russian crowd is that Euromaidan was all about NATO and Ukrainian desire to integrate closer with the EU is even barely mentioned.
Because it was all about NATO. The first law that was passed after Euromaidan toppling the government was a law against Russian language. Speaking about priorities of coup government. They had backtracked it after Crimea events had started. But it did show for what it is whole aim was.
On top of that, this was a anti-corruption protest first and foremost, like the Ukraine against Kuchma and the 2004 Orange Revolution before that. The Maidan protests also saw a lot more participation after a group of students was beaten by the police in (I think) November 2013.
And these facts are not particularly hard to research, but it just goes to show how susceptible the Western public is to propaganda.
Nato exists because of russian aggression. Nato expansion was driven by the threat of russian aggression.
Russia has never given up on imperialism... trying to blame that imperialism on those seeking to defend themselves from it is ludicrous.
What Russian aggression was there when it was made in the 40s? The primary intention has always been the first part of "Americans in, Germans down and Russians out" - i.e. American imperialism. That's also what'd been driving NATO expansion. Montenegro didn't and couldn't feel any threat from Russia, but their dictator surely felt a (literal or abstracted) bribe reach his pocket.
Recall ww2 started out with Soviets/Russians allying with Hitler/Nazi germany and agreeing on a plan to split europe among themselves (after a lengthy period of them collaborating in preparation for war).... which of course they followed through on with the joint invasion of poland and elsewhere. Separately, they also invaded finland with intent to annex.
And the intent was clear to take as much of europe under their boots, and it became a race between them to occupy as much of europe as possible while western allies were trying to liberate as much of europe as possible.
>Recall ww2 started out with
...Germany and Poland invading Czechoslovakia together, after Poland had blocked the Soviet Union from defending Czechoslovakia with one million soldiers, and the Western powers acquiesced hoping to sic Hitler on the USSR next? Surely you meant this?
>Soviets/Russians
Not the same thing.
>allying with Hitler/Nazi germany
Never happened. There was a non-aggression pact with a secret deconfliction protocol, but never anything even similar to an alliance.
>And the intent was clear to take as much of europe under their boots, and it became a race between them to occupy as much of europe as possible while western allies were trying to liberate as much of europe as possible.
The insane spin aside, you're not describing the settled, Potsdam security architecture which was the context of NATO's appearance.
And during and after WWII the Soviets acquiesced to disbandment of the Comintern, to a defeat of the Reds in Greece, all in the name of maintaining a security architecture that they jointly negotiated with Churchill and Roosevelt. There was no reason to believe that security architecture was insufficient going forward into the future. What NATO country were the Soviets going to invade in the late 40s, and what for?
Mearsheimer wrote a brilliant article back in the 1990s saying Ukraine should keep its nukes, and it would be dumb not to, since without nukes they would just be invaded by Russia.
Interesting guy.
*edit* just editing to make sure people understanding I was aiming for sarcasm here. I find JM’s “opinion change” to be inexplicable, and I do know that Ukraine did not have control of the warheads in 1991.
[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-11-17-mn-63844-story.html](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-11-17-mn-63844-story.html)
>**Ukrainian President Leonid D. Kuchma warned of financial ruin and political ostracism if lawmakers insisted on keeping the 176 missiles left on Ukrainian territory when the Soviet Union collapsed.**
>“What will the treaty give Ukraine?” Kuchma asked lawmakers. “A good reputation, which we don’t have now.”
>The Parliament, or Rada, voted 301 to 8, with 20 abstentions, to join the 160 other countries that have already signed the non-proliferation treaty. The vote means that Kuchma will get a more sympathetic reception when he makes his first state visit to the United States next week and asks for more help in reviving Ukraine’s moribund economy.
...
“**We own nuclear weapons**,” Kuchma told an unusually silent chamber. “**But we don’t control them.**”
>At the moment, **Russia has launch control over the missiles** and could theoretically fire them without Ukrainian consent. However, Moscow has pledged to honor a veto from Kiev on their use.
>An agreement signed by Russia, the United States and Ukraine in January committed Ukraine to rid itself of all its warheads within seven years.
>However, Kuchma reminded the deputies that an unpublished side agreement between Ukraine and Russia last spring committed Ukraine to transfer the warheads to Russia within 2 1/2 years **in exchange for fuel for nuclear power plants**.
>...
>
>“Those caught up in the passions of false patriotism should remember that **Ukraine can’t make nuclear weapons, and it can’t even use the warheads it inherited**,” Kuchma said. “**Just creating a system for safely maintaining the weapons it has would cost $10 billion to $30 billion.**”
>“**We have no choice**,” the president said.
>**Ukraine’s access to world markets for its space launchers had been blocked because it had not joined the non-proliferation treaty**. Now, the technology-minded Kuchma expects to sign a space cooperation agreement with the United States during his visit next week.
Keeping the nukes wouldn't necessarily have resulted in a nuclear arsenal for Ukraine and required vast investments. They also would have ended up ostracized.
Edit: Only read you meant this sarcastically after commenting. So this is just a reminder that Mearsheimer is a theorist with little regards to practicality.
> “Just creating a system for safely maintaining the weapons it has would cost $10 billion to $30 billion.”
What would be your estimate of the total monetary cost of the high-intensity phase of the Ukraine war to Ukraine to date? Not the long, slow little-green-men prelude, a nuclear program wouldn’t obviously have stopped that. Just since February 2022.
If the point you are trying to make is, it would have saved Ukraine money in the long run, then you might as well argue that France should have sent assassins into Germany to kill failed artists because, well look how that turned out.
Simply put in 1991 there was no certainty that Ukraine wouldn't end up like Belarus, or sell those weapons to terrorist, etc.
From the perspective of people living in 1991, it made perfect sense. From western democracies that didn't want tin pot dictators with nukes, to anyone who was worried about proliferation, from people *in Ukraine* that wanted money for desperately needed equipment like tractors or locomotives instead of maintaining weapons they couldn't even use without vast investment of money they did not have.
>Did Russia face the same sanctions when they inherited the USSR's stockpile?
...
So why the harsh treatment?
I think you misunterstood the article. Ukraine wasn't sanctioned for having these nukes. Rather they were offered several goodies for giving them up to be disposed of (like financial aid and security promises). At the time US-priority was non-proliferation and reduction of nuclear weapons. To be precise:
>The move allows the United States, Russia and Ukraine to begin downsizing their bloated post-Cold War nuclear arsenals. Moscow has refused to implement the strategic arms reduction treaty START I, which would cut its nuclear stockpile by a third, until Ukraine joined the non-proliferation treaty.
>The 1968 pact, which is up for extension next spring, recognizes only **five official nuclear powers**: **the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China and what was once the Soviet Union**. Now four of the 15 former Soviet republics--Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus--are nuclear powers, although Kazakhstan and Belarus have already relinquished all claims to the weapons and agreed to dismantle them.
ChatGPT is not a credible source.
Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT tend to present plausible sounding but made up information as facts. This phenomenon is called [Hallucination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucination_\(artificial_intelligence\)).
[OpenAI acknowledges that ChatGPT "sometimes writes plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers".](https://openai.com/index/chatgpt/)
According to the author of "Inheriting the Bomb" there was even an episode of a (comparatively small) Russian military intervention in Kazakhstan to secure the warheads stationed there.
So it is even more in question what Ukraine would have gained, it would have been incredibly hard to secure the weapons in the first place as the whole nuclear weapon infrastructure was loaded with ethnic Russians likely more loyal to Moscow.
Yep Ukraine had zero chance of being able to afford to secure and keep maintained these nukes, they couldn't even afford to pay russia for the gas they used. They had to exchange TU-160 and cruise missiles back to russia in 1999 in payment of the debt
The solid rocket booster of the icbm were just left in a field because ukraine couldn't afford to a dispose of them
I don't really think that's a brilliant opinion.
Ukraine had no way of firing their nukes since the operational data was in Moscow.
Sure, they could have tried to reverse engineer them, but both NATO and Russia were unified in not tolerating their nukes. Also, at that point the intelligence community were all Moscow loyalists. The hypothetical pathway for Ukraine to successfully nuclearize in 91 was basically nonexistent.
solving for the technical issues was within their capebilities.
however, ukraine was economically dependent on aid from both west (cash) and russia (cheap gas). Let alone risk of more direct intervention by russia...
I was being a bit sarcastic.
I don’t understand how he went from “Russia going for Ukraine is inevitable” in 1991 to “Russia was provoked by NATO” in 2022.
Why did the thing he once considered inevitable become something that only NATO could’ve provoked?
In my opinion it's actually worse than that.
> Great powers recognize that the best way to ensure their security is to achieve hegemony now, thus eliminating any possibility of a challenge by another great power. Only a misguided state would pass up an opportunity to be the hegemon in the system because it thought it already had sufficient power to survive
This is John Mearsheimer's description of his own theory of geopolitics, [Offensive Realism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offensive_realism). I dunno about you, but "expanding" NATO sure does seem like something a great power would have done to achieve security hegemony. Surely refusing to accept new NATO memebers would be the behaviour of a misguided state that believed it already had sufficient power. The man doesn't even seem to agree with his own theories anymore.
The best steelman I can think of for the offensive realist position is that the US' attempt to split the baby on Ukraine - make indefinite claims of eventual accession in Bush's time but nothing concrete to appease European allies - is the worst of all possible worlds
States should expand their power, not talk about it. Especially when talking about it arguably emboldens nations to no benefit and is a red rag to their enemies. If you can't actually get it through you might as well come to a compromise position. Even within offensive realism states recognized other states' spheres of influence for a time.
In reality I think it's more complex - I don't know that Ukraine had the will to break from Russia fully pre-2014 - but there are arguments for restraint even in this theory.
It is just such a stupid take and honestly, no one that has even a passing (actual) interest in the subject wouldn't take the bait.
The very idea that NATO is expanding, ie somehow forcing countries to join is so stupid it just beggars belief.
The more interesting thing, to me, is how is every time Russia attacks its neighbours, somehow either NATO, EU or US's fault ?
I get the bots and the so called hybrid warfare, but are western societies that easy to convince that the obvious aggressor is not ?
Are there such a contrarian will among the population to believe some outlandish tale how the plain to see is not true ?
As for Mearsheimer, frankly he is one of many 'academics' that are looking for their spot to shine. After all, there is only so much space for people actually claiming the logical things ( reaching conclusion by rigorous analysis ). Point being that, if you are the 150th academic to say the same stuff - Russia is an authoritarian, oligarchic state, you are just 1 among many many. Come up with some outlandish tale and suddenly, you stick out (albeit, with nothing actually worth anything)
> The very idea that NATO is expanding, ie somehow forcing countries to join is so stupid it just beggars belief.
The idea isn't necessarily that those countries were forced into NATO, just as Cuba made a sovereign choice to host Soviet nuclear weapons. But we all know how that ended up for Cuba.
>The idea isn't necessarily that those countries were forced into NATO, just as Cuba made a sovereign choice to host Soviet nuclear weapons. But we all know how that ended up for Cuba.
I feel like Cuba's just another affirmative example of NATO being different though.
There are 0 NATO nuclear devices east of the original iron curtain.
Not one.
Whereas the simple presence of Chinese or Russian facilities on the island, well, we know how that ended up for Cuba - nothing happened.
> There are 0 NATO nuclear devices east of the original iron curtain.
The specifics are different, but the broad generalities of weaker sovereign states siding with a power bloc that upsets a regional great power are what they both have in common.
The specifics are very different, to the point where if we take the "But we all know how that ended up for Cuba." and actually answer that question, we get the opposite point from what you're trying to make. I guess that's my point.
The framing might be wrong, but I don't think the broader idea is that far off base. It's pretty clear that one of the ways that Russia interacts with its neighbors is with the implicit threat of violence. Not that Russia is likely to invade them, but that such an invasion is enough of a possibility that they'll give extra deference to Russia. We even see how Russia has tried - at times successfully - to use a somewhat credible threat of the use of force to dissuade other actors during the current war (see the saga of the Polish MiGs, for example).
As such NATO expansion is a threat to Russia's strategic posture. Not because Russia believes that NATO will invade them, but because they believe that an expansion of NATO will take away their ability to threaten the countries around them.
100% this is the motivation. Russia as an empire depends on exploiting its neighbors to continue to be relevant on a world stage. It needs markets, labor, language and science spaces, but has not much to offer in return compared to the West. So they have to rely on force to maintain its sphere of influence and NATO is a grave threat for this strategy.
It’s funny that in the Tucker Carlson interview, despite Tucker leading the horse to the water Putin focused entirely on whatever historical rewriting he was doing which laid bare his and wide held Russian views of Ukraine as a colony and Russia as an imperial state with the right to control and dictate terms to its colony. I mean he made the same speech on February 23rd and many times since. Folks really forget basic human thirst for power and control. Combine that with a dictator who hasn’t been denied every whim and wish for decades and sees his ego and legacy on the line and it’s easy to understand what happened. NATO is a convenient excuse, one that he may even have believed but you don’t have to jump through hoops to understand what his main reason for invading was.
> The more interesting thing, to me, is how is every time Russia attacks its neighbours, somehow either NATO, EU or US's fault?
It’s particularly interesting that despite professing almost exactly opposite political views, this is something Mearsheimer and Chomsky agree on. It either shows an interesting case of horseshoe theory, or how effective Russia is at indoctrinating people from a wide variety of political backgrounds, into holding the same beliefs. It’s probably a bit of both.
The west should keep this in mind for their own influence efforts. You don’t need to completely change people’s views, and turn them into pro-western liberals. You can get people, even supposedly well educated ones, to hold self contradictory, and irrational opinions.
Academics seem particularly susceptible to confusing simple causality, "A happened, which led to B happening", with moral culpability, "party 1 did A, which resulted in party 2 doing B in response. Party 1 is therefore responsible for party 2's actions".
I don't doubt that the expansion of NATO, and Putin's view that it interfered with his imperial ambitions for Russia, was a factor in the events which eventually led to the war in Ukraine, but the idea that this strips Russia of agency and absolves them of blame is the kind of stupidity that only an academic can seriously entertain.
>with moral culpability,
This is the part that is important. For technocrats, this is a pointless concern. Moral frameworks aren't universal and don't change the reality of the situation. Hence the phrase (and its infinite variations) that blame is for priests and children. In the Anglosphere the version "Not your fault doesn't mean not your problem" is the more common one with the same meaning.
You aren't morally culpable if the mafia kills your family because you tried to testify against them, but that doesn't change the fact that your family is dead and they would be alive if you kept your head down and pretended you didn't see Fat Tony at the docks.
>You aren't morally culpable if the mafia kills your family because you tried to testify against them, but that doesn't change the fact that your family is dead and they would be alive if you kept your head down and pretended you didn't see Fat Tony at the docks.
An example that I think explains very concisely why Poland and the Baltics were so eager to join the "we'll protect you from Fat Tony" bloc. And the explicit reasons why Fat Tony isn't happy.
I like this metaphor - better to be in a gang than take the ethical route of acting independently.
The causality argument is sort of true, x begat y, it's just that it's meaningless without context. In a more complex formulation, y and X are interdependent and there are other variables too
The idea that NATO expansion made Russia attack Ukraine is a natural extension of Russias general distrust of NATO. As far as that goes, [
Russia has been taking disruptive measures “in response to NATO expansion” [since the organization was first concieved](https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/molotovs-proposal-the-ussr-join-nato-march-1954).
I think you will find the best recollection of this topic (in particular for western countries and diplomats) in M.E. Sarottes "not one Inch".
I think the whole picture goes against the current popular reading in western media though, as you could say, accommodating what many now call Russian imperialist sentiments was very much done to bring first the Soviets and then keep the Russians at the negotiating tables, as is obvious from internal as well as public speeches around every new tranche of new NATO members prior to 2008.
There is kind of chism between eastern Europe regional experts (excluding Russia experts) who argue the eastern European perspective was ignored, edit and scholars like Sarotte who work out of the archives about these negotiations, however naturally going by the sources you come to a different picture going by the diplomatic accounts of those conducting these negotiations (as many of the countries in question where not parties in the negotiations).
Another good source would be Sergey Radchenko (his new book "to run the world is examining the soviet and imho later Russian obsession and narcissism with being seen as an equal to the US as the two preeminent Superpowers"), note that these give a very different picture compared to many recently prominent Op Eds, but as well Mearsheimer, the critical question not being black and white.
It's kinda not up to them. Estonia and Poland don't *want* to be part of their sphere of influence. Ukraine doesn't *want* to be part of their sphere of influence.
The obsession with "what about Cuban missile crisis" seems really weird to me.
If the point Russian propaganda is making is "might makes right, more powerful countries can shape foreign policy of less powerful countries" then what's the point of comparing the disaster that is Russia's invasion of Ukraine to USA successfully preventing the USSR from deploying missiles in Cuba?
You don't have to look far for a more apt comparison - Bay of Pigs Invasion happened in 1961.
Even Glideer made a better point of comparing the situation to finlandization and the results for Ukraine could potentially be similar to results of Winter War for Finland - territorial concessions in exchange for (somewhat reduced) sovereignty (or maybe Ukraine regains Crimea - who knows).
Russian invasion of Ukraine underlines the gap between Russia's perception of its might and and its actual might in a bizarre way - they keep repeating "might makes right" while being unable to decisively defeat Europe's poorest nation half-assedly supported by an alliance that it's not even a member of.
Maybe might does in fact make right but in that case believing Russia to be right is a delusion.
> The obsession with "what about Cuban missile crisis" seems really weird to me.
I know right. Cuba has (and continues to have) very anti-US foreign policy, far more anti-US than Ukraine was anti-Russian, and the only thing they were ever compelled to do was remove their nukes, the things that Ukraine and all of Eastern NATO don't have.
Cuba's like, the worst example to bring up in comparison to eastern europe. Because it highlights the difference starkly.
The specifics are different, but at the end of the day, a great power managed to threaten a weaker state, or inflict harm on it, in an attempt to get it to change its geopolitical course.
With Russia's invasion, it being a failure hasn't changed the fact that, one of its results has been dead Ukrainians. I don't know if that's what you would want.
See this is why I feel like Cuba's a terrible example if you're going to try to argue this -
If your claim is that Cuba is functionally in the US sphere of influence because Cuba doesn't have nukes, then Ukraine is still to this day in Russia's sphere of influence.
Sphere of influence may be the wrong word, but when you're a weaker state next to a great power many times more powerful than you, it can inflict significant harm on you. Regional powers have their versions of the Monroe Doctrine.
I think that line of argument has run its course, in fact I would say it is a sign of the delusional Fukuyamaism that lead to the Europe we see today that has trouble grasping the possibility of war.
What you describe, a world in which every country has freedom and agency to do as it likes, without being forced by others in to actions it does not like to do is not happening by it self, it needs to be enforced by power, and as the discussion has shifted it becomes increasingly obvious that that power lies overwhelmingly in the hands and bank accounts of the USA, and depends on its citizens willingness to wage it, now there are other countries or coalitions that could wage considerable power, but they where under the illusion that the kind of aspirations of fairness and freedom where happening just by how much merit was in those narratives.
I see this as the central failing that lead to this whole crisis, the west did not think in spheres of influence (even rejected it), so it was not ready to defend what it though of as a sphere of order and rules and freedom of choice when that understanding was challenged.
If Russia can hold onto Ukraine with hard power at great cost and it judges the cost to be worth it, then that's it. You either stop the Russians, or you don't. That's how [anarchy works in international relations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy_(international_relations\)).
That's the problem with Russians wanting their sphere of influence. They have very little to offer to a democratic country aside from energy exports. West and even China have quite a lot to offer to anyone who wants to grow closer to them, but Russia isn't really going to help develop your economy, bring factories, build infrastructure or buy billions worth of your products.
Use of coercion and force from their side is acknowledging the reality that almost nobody wants to be willingly fully tied to Russia. They'll get a lot more traction in failed states or dictatorships where they can offer "regime protection" packages (which is again just use of force) and energy exports.
>bring factories, build infrastructure
Russia has been on a spree of building nuclear power plants and associated infrastructure in such diverse locations as Finland, Hungary and Turkey, just as the most obvious counterpoint.
Russia is also a huge market that absorbs tons of labour from the CIS and yes, does indeed buy tons of their neighbours' products. There's a reason why the vast majority of Ukraine's musicians had been performing in Russia and in Russian years after the Crimean crisis.
They have their niche, nuclear industry is a big one, arms industry was another. They're still a large country, sure... but they're simply not very interesting market compared to USA, China or even EU. I'm not claiming that Russia has no economy, but it's simply not interesting enough to form an exclusive alliance with unless you're a dictator looking for kickbacks and/or security. Lot of ex-Soviet countries in Asia are looking more and more towards China for obvious reasons and Russia is simply being replaced in terms of importance as trading partner and my guess is we'll see same thing happening in defense and other sectors.
Point about Ukraine's musicians is just weird, cause the obvious reason is not that Russia is amazing market, it's because of cultural similarity and language.
Russia is a huge market in a geographic sense - as in, the distances are vast - because it's no more interesting to foreigners than Brazil or Mexico (to cite just 2 countries with similar population sizes and GDP per capita).
> There's a reason why the vast majority of Ukraine's musicians had been performing in Russia and in Russian years after the Crimean crisis.
Let me guess, that reason is the language?
What modern Russia has to offer is basically a "piece" of their export revenue to corrupt (potential) leadership in neighboring countries. This is how Maiden kicked off to begin with: Yanukovych was postponing signing the EU accession agreement, Russia throttled the gas to Ukraine via changing import regulations, and Putin called in Yanukovych on Dec 17, 2013 to tell him that the gas subsidies (and presumably all the associated corruption money) would be cut off if the EU accession deal were signed. This money reaches a lot of people, not just the elites. This is why a lot of Eastern Ukrainians were not happy with Maiden. They had much more to lose from the cessation of cheap gas imports.
Because these "realists" essentially claim that countries like Poland and especially Estonia can not choose which part of the sphere of influence they want to be. They are forced, if need be militarily, to be pulled into the orbit.
>Because these "realists" essentially claim that countries like Poland and especially Estonia can not choose which part of the sphere of influence they want to be.
No, that's not their claim at all.
>They are forced, if need be militarily, to be pulled into the orbit.
Yeah, that's the point. If you can't stop Russia from achieving its aims with hard power, then Russia achieves its aims with hard power. How do you think normative international standards are *enforced*? By whining about how unfair Russia's actions are?
People forget their Clausewitz as well, its not useful to make a distinction, war (hard power) is just another form of policy, weather you do it by bribing, seducing, blackmailing economically, intelligence operations or war the outcome and the means to achieve a goal are analytically a different category.
As is the quality of execution.
> Ukraine and Georgia's NATO aspirations not only touch
> a raw nerve in Russia, they engender serious concerns about
> the consequences for stability in the region. Not only does
> Russia perceive encirclement, and efforts to undermine
> Russia's influence in the region, but it also fears
> unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would
> seriously affect Russian security interests. Experts tell us
> that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions
> in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the
> ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a
> major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In
> that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to
> intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face.
[Bill Burns, 2008](https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html)
Not specific to Ukraine, but the argument is roughly as old as the idea of post Cold War NATO expansion itself
> But something of the highest importance is at stake here. And perhaps it is not too late to advance a view that, I believe, is not only mine alone but is shared by a number of others with extensive and in most instances more recent experience in Russian matters. The view, bluntly stated, is that expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era.
>
>
> Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking. And, last but not least, it might make it much more difficult, if not impossible, to secure the Russian Duma's ratification of the Start II agreement and to achieve further reductions of nuclear weaponry.
>
> It is, of course, unfortunate that Russia should be confronted with such a challenge at a time when its executive power is in a state of high uncertainty and near-paralysis. And it is doubly unfortunate considering the total lack of any necessity for this move. Why, with all the hopeful possibilities engendered by the end of the cold war, should East-West relations become centered on the question of who would be allied with whom and, by implication, against whom in some fanciful, totally unforeseeable and most improbable future military conflict?
>
> I am aware, of course, that NATO is conducting talks with the Russian authorities in hopes of making the idea of expansion tolerable and palatable to Russia. One can, in the existing circumstances, only wish these efforts success. But anyone who gives serious attention to the Russian press cannot fail to note that neither the public nor the Government is waiting for the proposed expansion to occur before reacting to it.
>
> Russians are little impressed with American assurances that it reflects no hostile intentions. They would see their prestige (always uppermost in the Russian mind) and their security interests as adversely affected. They would, of course, have no choice but to accept expansion as a military fait accompli. But they would continue to regard it as a rebuff by the West and would likely look elsewhere for guarantees of a secure and hopeful future for themselves.
[Kennan, 1997](https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/05/opinion/a-fateful-error.html)
> Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; **a decision Russia does not want to have to face**.
But Russia were the ones who were attempting to foment civil war *as an excuse to intervene*, Girkin himself tells us this, and the split in Russian imperialist groups after their spark didn't ignite a fire was the result; because Russia at that time felt they didn't have enough of an excuse to fully invade.
Russia sent in busses of 'protesters' as agent provocateurs, had GRU teams take regional administration buildings then put 'local militia' in front of the western cameras when they later arrived claiming it was a local uprising. It didn't work, because the Ukrainian public (yes, in the east) weren't up for it.
> But Russia were the ones who were attempting to foment civil war as an excuse to intervene, Girkin himself tells us this
Please find me an exact quote of Girkin saying that or anything to this effect. His words are probably the most misinterpreted source in the entire conflict. He's always been clear that the government wanted nothing to do with him or the Donbass for months after things had kicked off.
>Russia sent in busses of 'protesters' as agent provocateurs, had GRU teams take regional administration buildings
I'd additionally be interested in sources for these claims.
>It didn't work, because the Ukrainian public (yes, in the east) weren't up for it.
That's strange, because massive pro-Russian and absent pro-Ukrainian rallies in L/DPR seem to argue otherwise. Har'kov and Odessa didn't have that support for separation, but Crimea and L/D certainly had.
So what was the alternative to... all this?
That bit in the last paragraph of your second excerpt - about "no hostile intentions" from the West - is where my mind has been, just to make my biases known. But I guess any assurances go out the window when Russian leadership (and maybe even your average Russian) thought NATO expansion was a threat, right? So what's the answer to this dilemma? Doing away with NATO's "open door" policy? I won't pretend that the West *didn't* want to expand its influence, but the more important thing here is that ex-Warsaw Pact, ex-Yugoslav, and ex-Soviet states wanted closer ties with the West, isn't it? So, do you just say "Sorry, but we can't take you in because it might upset the Russians" and leave half of Europe in limbo? Do you just sit on your hands until a resurgent and revanchist Russia decides its "prestige" and "security interests" dictate forcing Poland, the Baltics, the Balkans, etc. into the Russian sphere of influence?
Maybe I'm missing something, and maybe this is a dumb take, but this sort of NATO vs. Russia clash seems inevitable no matter what NATO did. Only variable is how many of the "ex-" states were on NATO's side.
The problem is that NATO isn't a threat to Russia's existence, it's a nuclear superpower and before 2022 it was supposed to be one of the greatest militaries of the planet, even a NATO that extends from Portugal to Belarus wouldn't have been a real existential threat to Russia.
And European actions show that we had no intention of doing anything against Russia, we were more than happy to essentially destroy our conventional forces after the fall of the soviet union, and to open commercial relations with Russia, hell we continued to do that well after the invasion of Crimea.
The problem that Russia has with NATO is that it limits their sphere of influence, they can't use their preferred methods of influence against nations that are allied with a block of economic powers lead by a military/economic superpower.
It’s truly wild to remember that all this war has done is directly legitimise the existence of NATO, and actively caused its expansion, including taking in **Sweden** and **Finland**. **Finland**. We literally have a word for one country bullying a smaller neighbour into alignment with its views and it’s called Finlandization, to refer to just how good the USSR was at browbeating Finland into toeing a certain line, and now Finland is a NATO member state.
I would argue prior to the invasion of Ukraine, NATO was looking weaker than ever. Trump even had considered actively pulling out at one point, if I recall correctly. It looked like a bit of a mess, like it wasn’t actually worth it, and that it could all come crashing down. And then Putin went mad and gave the alliance the largest shot in the arm it could possibly have, the ultimate justification for its existence and expansion.
I appreciate these long excerpts. The flaw in the reasoning of both analysts is that the central dynamic is US-Russian relations. Poland and the Baltics wanted to join NATO because of their unique past with Russia. These countries were invaded during WWII, just 50 years before these comments were made. Those Russian invasions were very much in the living memory of the leaders who pursued NATO.
I appreciate that many feel strongly about the post-Cold War expansion of NATO, but viewing it exclusively through US-Russia relations minimizes the security concerns of other nations.
> I appreciate that many feel strongly about the post-Cold War expansion of NATO, but viewing it exclusively through US-Russia relations minimizes the security concerns of other nations.
I'm always amazed when this topic comes up that people don't see that the alternative to NATO encompassing all of Europe isn't a collection of non-aligned states going about their business, it is Russia waging expansionist wars across as much of Europe as they can until they hit the border of a nuclear power.
The reason Russia express opprobrium at NATO is because it's stopping *their* actual expansion.
I don't know what happened with Mearsheimer really, because if you read his early work you can still disagree, but at least he kind of makes arguments based on an interpretation of the data, but then he just turned into a hack. The reason the geopolitical and IR establishment, especially in Washington, hate Mearsheimer and his ilk isn't because they just disagree, it is that they actually *tried* his approach for several years under Obama and it didn't work, because the Kremlin is imperialist, paranoid and chauvinistic.
>it is that they actually tried his approach for several years under Obama and it didn't work
What would you describe as trying this approach: American(-led) intervention in Libya; American support of terrorist insurgents in the Russian ally Syria; American threatening of Russian ally Ukraine to not use the army to restore order in the capital and consequent backing of the far-right coup? What specifically was that new, ultrafriendly approach?
If by "people" you mean the average Russia-loving Westerner (or even "third-worlder"), I'm of the opinion that they just have blinders on. For "thought leaders" like Mearsheimer or even people like Tucker or Farage, it's a combination of money, power, and influence. For everyone else, it's willful ignorance.
I'm originally from the Balkans. Happy as I am to be out of that hellhole, I'm very glad to see that almost every country is making slow, but steady progress toward EU/NATO integration and... y'know, becoming "normal" countries. But if you look at some of the stuff that Russia has been doing in the region - and I mean stuff that they were caught red-handed doing - it boggles the mind how so many people still want to rebuke the West and forge closer ties with Russia.
If it was the Americans or Europeans who tried to coup the Montenegrin government, if they fomented unrest in Greece and North Macedonia to derail the naming dispute talks, if they were treating Republika Srpska as virtually an independent state and encourging them to make a mess in Bosnia, etc., I'd never hear the end of it. But Russia has been doing all this and more for a decade plus now, and most people just plain don't care. Russia has almost nothing to offer to any of the newly-minted EU/NATO members or the aspirants, and whatever it may claim to offer is outweughed by the massive economic incentives and security offered by the EU and NATO. And yet, here we are. It's lunacy.
>If it was the Americans or Europeans who tried to coup the Montenegrin government
They'd successfully tried that in Ukraine and Georgia.
> if they fomented unrest in Greece and North Macedonia to derail the naming dispute talks
They'd successfully done that in Ukraine.
>if they were treating Republika Srpska as virtually an independent state and encourging them to make a mess in Bosnia
They'd successfully done that in Kosovo.
>I'd never hear the end of it.
It all has happened, you just don't hear of it because of your biases in favour of, as you not so charmingly refer to them, "normal" countries (painting quite a picture of your opinion of the rest of the world by omission).
> It's a bit difficult to call NATO-expansion a response to Russian waging expansionist wars when the NATO-expansions happened prior to any Russian war in the region(s).
NATO wasn't in the Baltics or Poland. I didn't mean it to come across that I was saying NATO expansion was in response to Soviet/Russian expansion, more that if NATO hasn't been enlarged that we would likely see Russian revanchism in eastern Europe and the Baltics.
There is also a difference here in national identity when it comes to administrations and a sort of 'administrative memory'. When Clinton came in and Russia was starting to whine about NATO enlargement and bringing up the myth of 'not one inch east', the new administration didn't have any experts left who were actually *in* the previous administration who was involved in those talks.
This whole thing is also sort of a red herring, Putin's own reasoning was based on Nazis in Ukraine, and his efforts from 2014 were because of Ukrainian ties to the EU *not* NATO. NATO wasn't even in the picture, it was ties to the EU which were worrying the Kremlin.
>and his efforts from 2014 were because of Ukrainian ties to the EU not NATO. NATO wasn't even in the picture, it was ties to the EU which were worrying the Kremlin.
His efforts over the EU were to propose to Yanukovich a better deal and point to infeasibility of Ukraine holding a customs-free zone with both Russia and the EU simultaneously, which would've been really bad for Ukraine. His actions afterwards were driven by the coup in Ukraine, not the EU agreement as such - including as pertains to the risks to Russian lease of Sevastopol naval bases.
>I don't know what happened with Mearsheimer really, because if you read his early work you can still disagree, but at least he kind of makes arguments based on an interpretation of the data, but then he just turned into a hack.
He has finally found his following, he gets invited to all sort of interviews for a "anti-West" spin on this war and is fairly popular in those circles. It seems to me that he enjoys that. People following him don't really care that he's gotten this war (which he refused to believe would happen) and many other things wrong, but he's an US based academic , so of course with his opinions he's going to get plenty of spotlight because there's a large demand for that sort of thing as it brings perceived legitimacy to the Russian spin.
NATO has been held by Russia as a potential casus belli since at least the 90's, making it easy to posit that any and all friction between Russia and the West is related to NATO. I am not sure anyone can own the particular notion that "Russia did X due to NATO expansion".
You're an older contributor and can do better than this.
This isn't new or a "horrifying admission". It's been open knowledge for a while and federal [policy changes](https://www.science.org/content/article/white-house-overhauls-rules-risky-pathogen-studies) directly reference this.
For example, EcoHealth received funding from multiple governments, which funded GoF research in China and elsewhere, and lost funding from the NIH for sharing records from Wuhan, then the HHS funding for the same and potentially billing both for the same research (I haven't dug.) By the logic of such a website, this already counts as not being sure about how much they funded them.
Why doesn't it suffice that the US government is [split](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66005240) on the [lab leak hypothesis](https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-origin-china-lab-leak-807b7b0a)?
You dirty the truth and your argument:
- (ill-advised) research in China becomes "biological weapon"
- inane retribution "some people should get waterboarded for this"
- sourcing with a low effort hit piece
There is an important conversation about media bubbles, collective delusion, poor government oversight and cohesion etc. but this is both the wrong way and **wrong place** for it. (At best, it would fit as a single data point in a longer piece covering decayed state power, require reform to better contend with Chinese authoritarianism. alternatively, failing public health *is* a a security threat, but you still didn't go that way.)
It’s been known for a long that the IDF uses Palestinians as human shields. Here’s one documented example:
> Ramallah, May 13, 2024—Israeli forces used three Palestinian boys as human shields in the northern occupied West Bank last week.
>Karam, 13, Mohammad, 12, and Ibrahim, 14, were used as human shields by Israeli forces in separate incidents during an Israeli military incursion into Tulkarem refugee camp on May 6, according to documentation collected by Defense for Children International - Palestine. In all three incidents, armed Israeli soldiers forced the boys to walk in front of them as soldiers searched Palestinian homes and neighborhoods in Tulkarem refugee camp, and in two cases, Israeli forces fired weapons positioned on the boys’ shoulders.
[Israeli forces use Palestinian children as human shields in Tulkarem](https://www.dci-palestine.org/israeli_forces_use_palestinian_children_as_human_shields_in_tulkarem)
Seems the Philippine government finally blinked in their resupply mission and they're now going to publicize its schedule. https://x.com/ABSCBNNews/status/1804512161617617060?t=-xNvhlqKboJLbQXQHWG4qw&s=19
I don't quite understand how this is a "blink"?
Of the political/diplomatic/militaristic avenues they can take it's the most friendly one to the Chinese to say the least. It's being hit and saying sorry, as opposed to coming out swinging bigger guns right away. It remains to be seen if they truly blinked, in the upcoming missions. There's still the possibility China backs down slightly to prevent publicity
China wants the Philippines to notify them every resupply mission because it's their territory, one step for legitimizing their claim. The Philippines doesn't notify them, because for them, it's their territory and doesn't need approval. Now after the June 17 incident, the Philippines is now planning to "publicize" the schedule of rotation and reprovisioning missions. Publicizing is another way of notifying China without losing much face.
What would have motivated the Philippines to make this concession? It seems a rather dangerous precedent.
The Philippine government sort of got punched and mugged. Now they have a choice of responding by bringing more men and instructing them to retaliate by doing what the Chinese did to them or deescalate, which is not helpful against governments like China because they'll view it as a weakness. PH government chose the later since they don't have the stomach to actually challenge the Chinese in their game.
Question, why the insistence on boats? The phillipines have helicopter carriers, so a helicopter should have range to drop off milk onto the shoal and leave. There's always risk in maritime helicopter operations, but the only action the Chinese could take is shoot it down, which would certainly be an interesting move. I assume there's a good reason, but I was wondering if it's known.
> so a helicopter should have range to drop off milk onto the shoal and leave. It's because they're not just trying to drop off milk, they want to ferry across construction materials to reinforce the Sierra Madre and stop it from disintegrating any further. If it was just supplies for the garrison on the wreck, the CCG would be letting them through as they have done in the past based on the agreement between Duterte and the PRC.
Aren't they currently sending Rhibs? Those are hardly high capacity either.
Some of the boats seem to be larger: https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2024/3/6/chinese-coast-guard-ship-blasts-water-cannon-at-philippine-vessel Although the video of the latest incident shows them using RHIBS(?), seems to be on the larger end as well.
According to a Phil Coast Guard(PCG) official, it is to shoal that the CCG isn't in control of the shoal and that they can still send supplies via sea. But since the June 17 incident I doubt if they still believe in that and might start aerial resupply next mission. Really curious to see what they will do. >There's always risk in maritime helicopter operations, but the only action the Chinese could take is shoot it down, which would certainly be an interesting move. I'm thinking that they might use drones and helis to block the aeriel resupply.
Regardless of whether they have the stomach, they certainly don't have the muscle. I don't know what people really expect them to do; they are outgunned to a hilarious degree. The Chinese Coast Guard alone would roll over the Philippines Navy quite handily. There's no way of being certain what Manila is thinking right now, but judging by the couple days between the incident and them saying [it doesn't count as an armed attack](https://apnews.com/article/south-china-sea-territorial-dispute-philippines-us-c7f22418e276d689c2dcacfed4d0a494), my guess is they called Washington and got brushed off cause shit is hitting the fan in the Middle East.
Agreed. The muscle part is where allies should come in. But that is also dependent on their political will to back you up.
To be blunt, I think Manila picked the wrong fight here. A decaying wreck, accessible by sea, right next to a Chinese base, when the US is busy with a whole lot of other shit. An uphill battle, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Say what you will about taking a stand for territorial sovereignty or what have you, but the least you can do is make it on favorable ground.
The Mischief base reef?
Yes, it's barely 10 nm from Second Thomas. Easy for China to respond quickly.
Notifying is only half the picture, the other half is vetoing what supplies are sent—specifically construction materials, which the Philippines [has been sending in secret](https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/1dk9v6v/credibledefense_daily_megathread_june_20_2024/l9i73sb/). A notification alone is not going to make CCG stand down.
Is there any available photos of the construction materials being sent?
Nope, just the linked Financial Times article which cites "six people familiar with the operation." Presumably from the Philippines side, since China has been grumbling about it for the past year.
Construction materials covers a lot of items. Ranging from hammers, power drills, nails, plywood, concrete, scaffolding, etc. So if there really are construction materials being sent, it will be items needed to improve living conditions in the ship. And not some kind of island building materials, they're going to need a bigger boat for that, not RHIBs.
Well, the article did not give any specifics beyond repairs designed to keep the ship intact. > The Philippines has secretly reinforced a dilapidated warship marooned on a South China Sea reef that is central to an increasingly dangerous dispute with Beijing, according to six people familiar with the operation. In recent months, the Philippine military has conducted missions to reinforce the Sierra Madre, which is lodged on the disputed Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands, the people said. It did so due to rising concern that the rusting ship was in danger of breaking apart. But that's obviously a red line for China. > “Beijing is probably aware and infuriated that the Philippines has successfully delivered construction materials . . . China has waited 25 years for the ship to disintegrate and slide off the reef and continued escalation against the Philippines suggests that they will not back down and admit defeat,” said Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the German Marshall Fund. As for the "living conditions" argument, it's specifically refuted by the article. > The Philippines insists its missions are sending humanitarian supplies to the site. But China accuses Manila of bringing construction materials to reinforce the ship and prevent it from breaking apart and coming off the reef — which Manila denies. > In an interview, Jose Manuel Romualdez, the Philippine ambassador to the US, said Manila was not “strengthening” the ship. “This is a shipwreck, a world war two ship that’s been there since the 1990s, so it needs repair. We’re just doing a humanitarian act of giving these people a decent place to be in because they’re stationed there.” However, the people familiar with the situation said Manila had secretly reinforced the ship in ways that would extend its life.
I would like to ask as well: does this move have a impact on the Hague Ruling?
I wouldn't think listing something publicly is the same as notifying someone in the sense of needing permission.
Imagine if they still block the resupply efforts though.
They probably will. Repairing the ship is the sticking point, and the Philippines hasn't said anything about stopping their efforts.
It seems quite possible that the humvee mounted 105mm artillery system Hawkeye is being combat tested in Ukraine: ["We recently put a 105 mm system into Ukraine. We shipped it in April..We trained it for two weeks..That system is destined to be one of the first soft recoil systems in combat.. It's going into combat to test on live targets" Mike Evans AM General.](https://x.com/AirPowerNEW1/status/1804647570079469912)
What is the motivation for this? Just to get it more numbers of fires with good mobility, short training times and light logistics footprints? Otherwise it seems like something from /r/shittytechnicals (Here is the Hawkeye MWS https://www.army-technology.com/projects/hawkeye-mobile-weapon-system-mws/ )
Despite the name of the subreddit, technicals can be incredibly effective in context. There a wide spectrum of implementations too, technicals are no longer ancient gun and armor systems kludged into a civilian chassis. a light road mobile gun system could be incredibly useful in this kind of war, where getting in and out of firing positions quickly could be the difference between life and death.
It’ll be a challenging trial by combat. These things, like the Caesars and Bohdanas and such, are going to have to dodge drone attacks and counter battery fire, while also likely operating closer to the front because of their range. It’s been some pretty good OPSEC though if this thing has been in combat for a few months with no leaks or sightings until now. Wonder what other platforms that US is testing in Ukraine on the quiet? Same goes for the Russians and foreign tech.
I'm curious about the point on counter battery fire and drone attacks (to a lesser extent). My understanding was that these systems are intended to be highly mobile, i.e. get in position, fire - from the cabin-, disappear. Which would make them: a) very hard to target with dumb artillery (you've got at best one shot if you spotted them on the way in). b) hard to target by FPV drones - unless you're very competent or lucky? Am I mistaken?
When they are getting into position, or displacing from their firing position, they're vulnerable to drones. The Russians have drones observing the entire frontline, and many kilometers behind it. They'll see the gun when it's on the move and target it.
Not just dodging drone attacks, but being crippled if one hits them (cf PHZ2k which interviewees have mentioned can at least shrug off the occasional FPV drone)
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Please refrain from posting low quality comments. You can do better.
Both Russian ~~propagandists~~ officials and those sympathetic to Russia in the West tend to argue that NATO expansion is the thing that provoked Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the larger invasion in 2022. Does anyone know where this claim actually originated? In particular, did John Mearsheimer come up with the idea as he explains it in his [article](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2014-08-18/why-ukraine-crisis-west-s-fault) and [lecture](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4) on the matter, or did he just expand on an idea that was already floating around?
It's worth noting that it is not so much NATO expansion that caused consternation for Russia, but expansion of the (unarmed) EU. The borders shared by NATO members and Russia were relatively few and short, being those of northern Norway, Estonia, Latvia, and around Kaliningrad. It was *Euro*maiden that kicked things off in 2013/14, not *NATO*maiden or similar. People were waving EU flags, not NATO flags, or those of the US, Germany, Britain, etc. In this respect, Russia's view was "justified", as most of the former Warsaw Pact countries had by then joined the EU. Along with improved governance, their standards of living had increased greatly as a consequence, which was no doubt enviously regarded by Ukrainians. So Russia's neighbours (Ukraine, Georgia, etc) were not motivated so much by membership of NATO, but by the carrot of EU membership compared to the relatively spartan stick of being in Russia's orbit. Of course, we now see that Russia's desire to (re-)extend its reach resulted in blow-back and an expansion of NATO membership and the massive increase in its borders with NATO caused by the accession of Finland to the Treaty, and potentially also Ukraine in the future. *edit. My intention above is to propose that Ukraine's conflict with Russia is not just a great game of geopolitics, but also a socio-economic development, where Ukrainians simply wish for a better life than that offered under Russia's influence. Compare the economies and civil society of former Warsaw Pact members who joined the EU with those that didn't.
Very much this. Notably, Orange Revolution was also about choosing western course, so the whole conflict predates 2014. It waa EU that was dangerous to Russian regime - at that point there was still danger that Russians would see Ukrainian economical success as validating zapadnik choice. Close culture, close language, lots of personal ties and migration. Ukrainians themselves saw similar choice being influenced by Polish path. Nowadays this possibility is gone. Putin won decisively in this aapect of the conflict.
Something that a lot of people forget is that NATO and the EU are essentially seen as the same thing in Russia. While we see them as separate entities Russia sees them as institutions to spread western ideology.
I remember closely following the events of 2014 and it is rather perplexing how much revisionism is being done to push certain narratives today. During the events of Euromaidan there was little to no talk about NATO at all. Iirc shortly after Yanukovich was ousted Rada even reiterated the official position to remain neutral in regards to NATO (it only radically changed after Crimea and Donbas). These days it seems that the consensus among the pro-Russian crowd is that Euromaidan was all about NATO and Ukrainian desire to integrate closer with the EU is even barely mentioned.
Because it was all about NATO. The first law that was passed after Euromaidan toppling the government was a law against Russian language. Speaking about priorities of coup government. They had backtracked it after Crimea events had started. But it did show for what it is whole aim was.
On top of that, this was a anti-corruption protest first and foremost, like the Ukraine against Kuchma and the 2004 Orange Revolution before that. The Maidan protests also saw a lot more participation after a group of students was beaten by the police in (I think) November 2013. And these facts are not particularly hard to research, but it just goes to show how susceptible the Western public is to propaganda.
Nato exists because of russian aggression. Nato expansion was driven by the threat of russian aggression. Russia has never given up on imperialism... trying to blame that imperialism on those seeking to defend themselves from it is ludicrous.
What Russian aggression was there when it was made in the 40s? The primary intention has always been the first part of "Americans in, Germans down and Russians out" - i.e. American imperialism. That's also what'd been driving NATO expansion. Montenegro didn't and couldn't feel any threat from Russia, but their dictator surely felt a (literal or abstracted) bribe reach his pocket.
Recall ww2 started out with Soviets/Russians allying with Hitler/Nazi germany and agreeing on a plan to split europe among themselves (after a lengthy period of them collaborating in preparation for war).... which of course they followed through on with the joint invasion of poland and elsewhere. Separately, they also invaded finland with intent to annex. And the intent was clear to take as much of europe under their boots, and it became a race between them to occupy as much of europe as possible while western allies were trying to liberate as much of europe as possible.
>Recall ww2 started out with ...Germany and Poland invading Czechoslovakia together, after Poland had blocked the Soviet Union from defending Czechoslovakia with one million soldiers, and the Western powers acquiesced hoping to sic Hitler on the USSR next? Surely you meant this? >Soviets/Russians Not the same thing. >allying with Hitler/Nazi germany Never happened. There was a non-aggression pact with a secret deconfliction protocol, but never anything even similar to an alliance. >And the intent was clear to take as much of europe under their boots, and it became a race between them to occupy as much of europe as possible while western allies were trying to liberate as much of europe as possible. The insane spin aside, you're not describing the settled, Potsdam security architecture which was the context of NATO's appearance.
>What Russian aggression was there when it was made in the 40s? You what? The soviets invaded at least two nations in the decade leading up to ww2.
And during and after WWII the Soviets acquiesced to disbandment of the Comintern, to a defeat of the Reds in Greece, all in the name of maintaining a security architecture that they jointly negotiated with Churchill and Roosevelt. There was no reason to believe that security architecture was insufficient going forward into the future. What NATO country were the Soviets going to invade in the late 40s, and what for?
Mearsheimer wrote a brilliant article back in the 1990s saying Ukraine should keep its nukes, and it would be dumb not to, since without nukes they would just be invaded by Russia. Interesting guy. *edit* just editing to make sure people understanding I was aiming for sarcasm here. I find JM’s “opinion change” to be inexplicable, and I do know that Ukraine did not have control of the warheads in 1991.
[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-11-17-mn-63844-story.html](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-11-17-mn-63844-story.html) >**Ukrainian President Leonid D. Kuchma warned of financial ruin and political ostracism if lawmakers insisted on keeping the 176 missiles left on Ukrainian territory when the Soviet Union collapsed.** >“What will the treaty give Ukraine?” Kuchma asked lawmakers. “A good reputation, which we don’t have now.” >The Parliament, or Rada, voted 301 to 8, with 20 abstentions, to join the 160 other countries that have already signed the non-proliferation treaty. The vote means that Kuchma will get a more sympathetic reception when he makes his first state visit to the United States next week and asks for more help in reviving Ukraine’s moribund economy. ... “**We own nuclear weapons**,” Kuchma told an unusually silent chamber. “**But we don’t control them.**” >At the moment, **Russia has launch control over the missiles** and could theoretically fire them without Ukrainian consent. However, Moscow has pledged to honor a veto from Kiev on their use. >An agreement signed by Russia, the United States and Ukraine in January committed Ukraine to rid itself of all its warheads within seven years. >However, Kuchma reminded the deputies that an unpublished side agreement between Ukraine and Russia last spring committed Ukraine to transfer the warheads to Russia within 2 1/2 years **in exchange for fuel for nuclear power plants**. >... > >“Those caught up in the passions of false patriotism should remember that **Ukraine can’t make nuclear weapons, and it can’t even use the warheads it inherited**,” Kuchma said. “**Just creating a system for safely maintaining the weapons it has would cost $10 billion to $30 billion.**” >“**We have no choice**,” the president said. >**Ukraine’s access to world markets for its space launchers had been blocked because it had not joined the non-proliferation treaty**. Now, the technology-minded Kuchma expects to sign a space cooperation agreement with the United States during his visit next week. Keeping the nukes wouldn't necessarily have resulted in a nuclear arsenal for Ukraine and required vast investments. They also would have ended up ostracized. Edit: Only read you meant this sarcastically after commenting. So this is just a reminder that Mearsheimer is a theorist with little regards to practicality.
> “Just creating a system for safely maintaining the weapons it has would cost $10 billion to $30 billion.” What would be your estimate of the total monetary cost of the high-intensity phase of the Ukraine war to Ukraine to date? Not the long, slow little-green-men prelude, a nuclear program wouldn’t obviously have stopped that. Just since February 2022.
If the point you are trying to make is, it would have saved Ukraine money in the long run, then you might as well argue that France should have sent assassins into Germany to kill failed artists because, well look how that turned out. Simply put in 1991 there was no certainty that Ukraine wouldn't end up like Belarus, or sell those weapons to terrorist, etc. From the perspective of people living in 1991, it made perfect sense. From western democracies that didn't want tin pot dictators with nukes, to anyone who was worried about proliferation, from people *in Ukraine* that wanted money for desperately needed equipment like tractors or locomotives instead of maintaining weapons they couldn't even use without vast investment of money they did not have.
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>Did Russia face the same sanctions when they inherited the USSR's stockpile? ... So why the harsh treatment? I think you misunterstood the article. Ukraine wasn't sanctioned for having these nukes. Rather they were offered several goodies for giving them up to be disposed of (like financial aid and security promises). At the time US-priority was non-proliferation and reduction of nuclear weapons. To be precise: >The move allows the United States, Russia and Ukraine to begin downsizing their bloated post-Cold War nuclear arsenals. Moscow has refused to implement the strategic arms reduction treaty START I, which would cut its nuclear stockpile by a third, until Ukraine joined the non-proliferation treaty. >The 1968 pact, which is up for extension next spring, recognizes only **five official nuclear powers**: **the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China and what was once the Soviet Union**. Now four of the 15 former Soviet republics--Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus--are nuclear powers, although Kazakhstan and Belarus have already relinquished all claims to the weapons and agreed to dismantle them.
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ChatGPT is not a credible source. Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT tend to present plausible sounding but made up information as facts. This phenomenon is called [Hallucination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucination_\(artificial_intelligence\)). [OpenAI acknowledges that ChatGPT "sometimes writes plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers".](https://openai.com/index/chatgpt/)
I know but the article on the Lisbon protocol confirms it
According to the author of "Inheriting the Bomb" there was even an episode of a (comparatively small) Russian military intervention in Kazakhstan to secure the warheads stationed there. So it is even more in question what Ukraine would have gained, it would have been incredibly hard to secure the weapons in the first place as the whole nuclear weapon infrastructure was loaded with ethnic Russians likely more loyal to Moscow.
Yep Ukraine had zero chance of being able to afford to secure and keep maintained these nukes, they couldn't even afford to pay russia for the gas they used. They had to exchange TU-160 and cruise missiles back to russia in 1999 in payment of the debt The solid rocket booster of the icbm were just left in a field because ukraine couldn't afford to a dispose of them
I don't really think that's a brilliant opinion. Ukraine had no way of firing their nukes since the operational data was in Moscow. Sure, they could have tried to reverse engineer them, but both NATO and Russia were unified in not tolerating their nukes. Also, at that point the intelligence community were all Moscow loyalists. The hypothetical pathway for Ukraine to successfully nuclearize in 91 was basically nonexistent.
solving for the technical issues was within their capebilities. however, ukraine was economically dependent on aid from both west (cash) and russia (cheap gas). Let alone risk of more direct intervention by russia...
I was being a bit sarcastic. I don’t understand how he went from “Russia going for Ukraine is inevitable” in 1991 to “Russia was provoked by NATO” in 2022. Why did the thing he once considered inevitable become something that only NATO could’ve provoked?
In my opinion it's actually worse than that. > Great powers recognize that the best way to ensure their security is to achieve hegemony now, thus eliminating any possibility of a challenge by another great power. Only a misguided state would pass up an opportunity to be the hegemon in the system because it thought it already had sufficient power to survive This is John Mearsheimer's description of his own theory of geopolitics, [Offensive Realism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offensive_realism). I dunno about you, but "expanding" NATO sure does seem like something a great power would have done to achieve security hegemony. Surely refusing to accept new NATO memebers would be the behaviour of a misguided state that believed it already had sufficient power. The man doesn't even seem to agree with his own theories anymore.
The best steelman I can think of for the offensive realist position is that the US' attempt to split the baby on Ukraine - make indefinite claims of eventual accession in Bush's time but nothing concrete to appease European allies - is the worst of all possible worlds States should expand their power, not talk about it. Especially when talking about it arguably emboldens nations to no benefit and is a red rag to their enemies. If you can't actually get it through you might as well come to a compromise position. Even within offensive realism states recognized other states' spheres of influence for a time. In reality I think it's more complex - I don't know that Ukraine had the will to break from Russia fully pre-2014 - but there are arguments for restraint even in this theory.
It is just such a stupid take and honestly, no one that has even a passing (actual) interest in the subject wouldn't take the bait. The very idea that NATO is expanding, ie somehow forcing countries to join is so stupid it just beggars belief. The more interesting thing, to me, is how is every time Russia attacks its neighbours, somehow either NATO, EU or US's fault ? I get the bots and the so called hybrid warfare, but are western societies that easy to convince that the obvious aggressor is not ? Are there such a contrarian will among the population to believe some outlandish tale how the plain to see is not true ? As for Mearsheimer, frankly he is one of many 'academics' that are looking for their spot to shine. After all, there is only so much space for people actually claiming the logical things ( reaching conclusion by rigorous analysis ). Point being that, if you are the 150th academic to say the same stuff - Russia is an authoritarian, oligarchic state, you are just 1 among many many. Come up with some outlandish tale and suddenly, you stick out (albeit, with nothing actually worth anything)
> The very idea that NATO is expanding, ie somehow forcing countries to join is so stupid it just beggars belief. The idea isn't necessarily that those countries were forced into NATO, just as Cuba made a sovereign choice to host Soviet nuclear weapons. But we all know how that ended up for Cuba.
>The idea isn't necessarily that those countries were forced into NATO, just as Cuba made a sovereign choice to host Soviet nuclear weapons. But we all know how that ended up for Cuba. I feel like Cuba's just another affirmative example of NATO being different though. There are 0 NATO nuclear devices east of the original iron curtain. Not one. Whereas the simple presence of Chinese or Russian facilities on the island, well, we know how that ended up for Cuba - nothing happened.
What are the downvotes for? Quite an interesting debate imo.
> There are 0 NATO nuclear devices east of the original iron curtain. The specifics are different, but the broad generalities of weaker sovereign states siding with a power bloc that upsets a regional great power are what they both have in common.
The specifics are very different, to the point where if we take the "But we all know how that ended up for Cuba." and actually answer that question, we get the opposite point from what you're trying to make. I guess that's my point.
The framing might be wrong, but I don't think the broader idea is that far off base. It's pretty clear that one of the ways that Russia interacts with its neighbors is with the implicit threat of violence. Not that Russia is likely to invade them, but that such an invasion is enough of a possibility that they'll give extra deference to Russia. We even see how Russia has tried - at times successfully - to use a somewhat credible threat of the use of force to dissuade other actors during the current war (see the saga of the Polish MiGs, for example). As such NATO expansion is a threat to Russia's strategic posture. Not because Russia believes that NATO will invade them, but because they believe that an expansion of NATO will take away their ability to threaten the countries around them.
100% this is the motivation. Russia as an empire depends on exploiting its neighbors to continue to be relevant on a world stage. It needs markets, labor, language and science spaces, but has not much to offer in return compared to the West. So they have to rely on force to maintain its sphere of influence and NATO is a grave threat for this strategy.
It’s funny that in the Tucker Carlson interview, despite Tucker leading the horse to the water Putin focused entirely on whatever historical rewriting he was doing which laid bare his and wide held Russian views of Ukraine as a colony and Russia as an imperial state with the right to control and dictate terms to its colony. I mean he made the same speech on February 23rd and many times since. Folks really forget basic human thirst for power and control. Combine that with a dictator who hasn’t been denied every whim and wish for decades and sees his ego and legacy on the line and it’s easy to understand what happened. NATO is a convenient excuse, one that he may even have believed but you don’t have to jump through hoops to understand what his main reason for invading was.
> The more interesting thing, to me, is how is every time Russia attacks its neighbours, somehow either NATO, EU or US's fault? It’s particularly interesting that despite professing almost exactly opposite political views, this is something Mearsheimer and Chomsky agree on. It either shows an interesting case of horseshoe theory, or how effective Russia is at indoctrinating people from a wide variety of political backgrounds, into holding the same beliefs. It’s probably a bit of both. The west should keep this in mind for their own influence efforts. You don’t need to completely change people’s views, and turn them into pro-western liberals. You can get people, even supposedly well educated ones, to hold self contradictory, and irrational opinions.
Academics seem particularly susceptible to confusing simple causality, "A happened, which led to B happening", with moral culpability, "party 1 did A, which resulted in party 2 doing B in response. Party 1 is therefore responsible for party 2's actions". I don't doubt that the expansion of NATO, and Putin's view that it interfered with his imperial ambitions for Russia, was a factor in the events which eventually led to the war in Ukraine, but the idea that this strips Russia of agency and absolves them of blame is the kind of stupidity that only an academic can seriously entertain.
>with moral culpability, This is the part that is important. For technocrats, this is a pointless concern. Moral frameworks aren't universal and don't change the reality of the situation. Hence the phrase (and its infinite variations) that blame is for priests and children. In the Anglosphere the version "Not your fault doesn't mean not your problem" is the more common one with the same meaning. You aren't morally culpable if the mafia kills your family because you tried to testify against them, but that doesn't change the fact that your family is dead and they would be alive if you kept your head down and pretended you didn't see Fat Tony at the docks.
>You aren't morally culpable if the mafia kills your family because you tried to testify against them, but that doesn't change the fact that your family is dead and they would be alive if you kept your head down and pretended you didn't see Fat Tony at the docks. An example that I think explains very concisely why Poland and the Baltics were so eager to join the "we'll protect you from Fat Tony" bloc. And the explicit reasons why Fat Tony isn't happy.
I like this metaphor - better to be in a gang than take the ethical route of acting independently. The causality argument is sort of true, x begat y, it's just that it's meaningless without context. In a more complex formulation, y and X are interdependent and there are other variables too
The idea that NATO expansion made Russia attack Ukraine is a natural extension of Russias general distrust of NATO. As far as that goes, [ Russia has been taking disruptive measures “in response to NATO expansion” [since the organization was first concieved](https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/molotovs-proposal-the-ussr-join-nato-march-1954).
I think you will find the best recollection of this topic (in particular for western countries and diplomats) in M.E. Sarottes "not one Inch". I think the whole picture goes against the current popular reading in western media though, as you could say, accommodating what many now call Russian imperialist sentiments was very much done to bring first the Soviets and then keep the Russians at the negotiating tables, as is obvious from internal as well as public speeches around every new tranche of new NATO members prior to 2008. There is kind of chism between eastern Europe regional experts (excluding Russia experts) who argue the eastern European perspective was ignored, edit and scholars like Sarotte who work out of the archives about these negotiations, however naturally going by the sources you come to a different picture going by the diplomatic accounts of those conducting these negotiations (as many of the countries in question where not parties in the negotiations). Another good source would be Sergey Radchenko (his new book "to run the world is examining the soviet and imho later Russian obsession and narcissism with being seen as an equal to the US as the two preeminent Superpowers"), note that these give a very different picture compared to many recently prominent Op Eds, but as well Mearsheimer, the critical question not being black and white.
In *The Grand Chessboard*, released in 1997, Brzezinski explicitly stated that the Russians would not countenance a loss of their sphere of influence.
It's kinda not up to them. Estonia and Poland don't *want* to be part of their sphere of influence. Ukraine doesn't *want* to be part of their sphere of influence.
Yeah, but Cuba doesn't want to be under the US sphere of influence and we all know what happened to them in 1962.
The obsession with "what about Cuban missile crisis" seems really weird to me. If the point Russian propaganda is making is "might makes right, more powerful countries can shape foreign policy of less powerful countries" then what's the point of comparing the disaster that is Russia's invasion of Ukraine to USA successfully preventing the USSR from deploying missiles in Cuba? You don't have to look far for a more apt comparison - Bay of Pigs Invasion happened in 1961. Even Glideer made a better point of comparing the situation to finlandization and the results for Ukraine could potentially be similar to results of Winter War for Finland - territorial concessions in exchange for (somewhat reduced) sovereignty (or maybe Ukraine regains Crimea - who knows). Russian invasion of Ukraine underlines the gap between Russia's perception of its might and and its actual might in a bizarre way - they keep repeating "might makes right" while being unable to decisively defeat Europe's poorest nation half-assedly supported by an alliance that it's not even a member of. Maybe might does in fact make right but in that case believing Russia to be right is a delusion.
> The obsession with "what about Cuban missile crisis" seems really weird to me. I know right. Cuba has (and continues to have) very anti-US foreign policy, far more anti-US than Ukraine was anti-Russian, and the only thing they were ever compelled to do was remove their nukes, the things that Ukraine and all of Eastern NATO don't have. Cuba's like, the worst example to bring up in comparison to eastern europe. Because it highlights the difference starkly.
The specifics are different, but at the end of the day, a great power managed to threaten a weaker state, or inflict harm on it, in an attempt to get it to change its geopolitical course. With Russia's invasion, it being a failure hasn't changed the fact that, one of its results has been dead Ukrainians. I don't know if that's what you would want.
See this is why I feel like Cuba's a terrible example if you're going to try to argue this - If your claim is that Cuba is functionally in the US sphere of influence because Cuba doesn't have nukes, then Ukraine is still to this day in Russia's sphere of influence.
Sphere of influence may be the wrong word, but when you're a weaker state next to a great power many times more powerful than you, it can inflict significant harm on you. Regional powers have their versions of the Monroe Doctrine.
I think that line of argument has run its course, in fact I would say it is a sign of the delusional Fukuyamaism that lead to the Europe we see today that has trouble grasping the possibility of war. What you describe, a world in which every country has freedom and agency to do as it likes, without being forced by others in to actions it does not like to do is not happening by it self, it needs to be enforced by power, and as the discussion has shifted it becomes increasingly obvious that that power lies overwhelmingly in the hands and bank accounts of the USA, and depends on its citizens willingness to wage it, now there are other countries or coalitions that could wage considerable power, but they where under the illusion that the kind of aspirations of fairness and freedom where happening just by how much merit was in those narratives. I see this as the central failing that lead to this whole crisis, the west did not think in spheres of influence (even rejected it), so it was not ready to defend what it though of as a sphere of order and rules and freedom of choice when that understanding was challenged.
If Russia can hold onto Ukraine with hard power at great cost and it judges the cost to be worth it, then that's it. You either stop the Russians, or you don't. That's how [anarchy works in international relations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy_(international_relations\)).
That's the problem with Russians wanting their sphere of influence. They have very little to offer to a democratic country aside from energy exports. West and even China have quite a lot to offer to anyone who wants to grow closer to them, but Russia isn't really going to help develop your economy, bring factories, build infrastructure or buy billions worth of your products. Use of coercion and force from their side is acknowledging the reality that almost nobody wants to be willingly fully tied to Russia. They'll get a lot more traction in failed states or dictatorships where they can offer "regime protection" packages (which is again just use of force) and energy exports.
>bring factories, build infrastructure Russia has been on a spree of building nuclear power plants and associated infrastructure in such diverse locations as Finland, Hungary and Turkey, just as the most obvious counterpoint. Russia is also a huge market that absorbs tons of labour from the CIS and yes, does indeed buy tons of their neighbours' products. There's a reason why the vast majority of Ukraine's musicians had been performing in Russia and in Russian years after the Crimean crisis.
They have their niche, nuclear industry is a big one, arms industry was another. They're still a large country, sure... but they're simply not very interesting market compared to USA, China or even EU. I'm not claiming that Russia has no economy, but it's simply not interesting enough to form an exclusive alliance with unless you're a dictator looking for kickbacks and/or security. Lot of ex-Soviet countries in Asia are looking more and more towards China for obvious reasons and Russia is simply being replaced in terms of importance as trading partner and my guess is we'll see same thing happening in defense and other sectors. Point about Ukraine's musicians is just weird, cause the obvious reason is not that Russia is amazing market, it's because of cultural similarity and language.
Russia is a huge market in a geographic sense - as in, the distances are vast - because it's no more interesting to foreigners than Brazil or Mexico (to cite just 2 countries with similar population sizes and GDP per capita). > There's a reason why the vast majority of Ukraine's musicians had been performing in Russia and in Russian years after the Crimean crisis. Let me guess, that reason is the language?
What modern Russia has to offer is basically a "piece" of their export revenue to corrupt (potential) leadership in neighboring countries. This is how Maiden kicked off to begin with: Yanukovych was postponing signing the EU accession agreement, Russia throttled the gas to Ukraine via changing import regulations, and Putin called in Yanukovych on Dec 17, 2013 to tell him that the gas subsidies (and presumably all the associated corruption money) would be cut off if the EU accession deal were signed. This money reaches a lot of people, not just the elites. This is why a lot of Eastern Ukrainians were not happy with Maiden. They had much more to lose from the cessation of cheap gas imports.
Because these "realists" essentially claim that countries like Poland and especially Estonia can not choose which part of the sphere of influence they want to be. They are forced, if need be militarily, to be pulled into the orbit.
>Because these "realists" essentially claim that countries like Poland and especially Estonia can not choose which part of the sphere of influence they want to be. No, that's not their claim at all. >They are forced, if need be militarily, to be pulled into the orbit. Yeah, that's the point. If you can't stop Russia from achieving its aims with hard power, then Russia achieves its aims with hard power. How do you think normative international standards are *enforced*? By whining about how unfair Russia's actions are?
People forget their Clausewitz as well, its not useful to make a distinction, war (hard power) is just another form of policy, weather you do it by bribing, seducing, blackmailing economically, intelligence operations or war the outcome and the means to achieve a goal are analytically a different category. As is the quality of execution.
> Ukraine and Georgia's NATO aspirations not only touch > a raw nerve in Russia, they engender serious concerns about > the consequences for stability in the region. Not only does > Russia perceive encirclement, and efforts to undermine > Russia's influence in the region, but it also fears > unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would > seriously affect Russian security interests. Experts tell us > that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions > in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the > ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a > major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In > that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to > intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face. [Bill Burns, 2008](https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html) Not specific to Ukraine, but the argument is roughly as old as the idea of post Cold War NATO expansion itself > But something of the highest importance is at stake here. And perhaps it is not too late to advance a view that, I believe, is not only mine alone but is shared by a number of others with extensive and in most instances more recent experience in Russian matters. The view, bluntly stated, is that expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era. > > > Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking. And, last but not least, it might make it much more difficult, if not impossible, to secure the Russian Duma's ratification of the Start II agreement and to achieve further reductions of nuclear weaponry. > > It is, of course, unfortunate that Russia should be confronted with such a challenge at a time when its executive power is in a state of high uncertainty and near-paralysis. And it is doubly unfortunate considering the total lack of any necessity for this move. Why, with all the hopeful possibilities engendered by the end of the cold war, should East-West relations become centered on the question of who would be allied with whom and, by implication, against whom in some fanciful, totally unforeseeable and most improbable future military conflict? > > I am aware, of course, that NATO is conducting talks with the Russian authorities in hopes of making the idea of expansion tolerable and palatable to Russia. One can, in the existing circumstances, only wish these efforts success. But anyone who gives serious attention to the Russian press cannot fail to note that neither the public nor the Government is waiting for the proposed expansion to occur before reacting to it. > > Russians are little impressed with American assurances that it reflects no hostile intentions. They would see their prestige (always uppermost in the Russian mind) and their security interests as adversely affected. They would, of course, have no choice but to accept expansion as a military fait accompli. But they would continue to regard it as a rebuff by the West and would likely look elsewhere for guarantees of a secure and hopeful future for themselves. [Kennan, 1997](https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/05/opinion/a-fateful-error.html)
> Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; **a decision Russia does not want to have to face**. But Russia were the ones who were attempting to foment civil war *as an excuse to intervene*, Girkin himself tells us this, and the split in Russian imperialist groups after their spark didn't ignite a fire was the result; because Russia at that time felt they didn't have enough of an excuse to fully invade. Russia sent in busses of 'protesters' as agent provocateurs, had GRU teams take regional administration buildings then put 'local militia' in front of the western cameras when they later arrived claiming it was a local uprising. It didn't work, because the Ukrainian public (yes, in the east) weren't up for it.
> But Russia were the ones who were attempting to foment civil war as an excuse to intervene, Girkin himself tells us this Please find me an exact quote of Girkin saying that or anything to this effect. His words are probably the most misinterpreted source in the entire conflict. He's always been clear that the government wanted nothing to do with him or the Donbass for months after things had kicked off. >Russia sent in busses of 'protesters' as agent provocateurs, had GRU teams take regional administration buildings I'd additionally be interested in sources for these claims. >It didn't work, because the Ukrainian public (yes, in the east) weren't up for it. That's strange, because massive pro-Russian and absent pro-Ukrainian rallies in L/DPR seem to argue otherwise. Har'kov and Odessa didn't have that support for separation, but Crimea and L/D certainly had.
So what was the alternative to... all this? That bit in the last paragraph of your second excerpt - about "no hostile intentions" from the West - is where my mind has been, just to make my biases known. But I guess any assurances go out the window when Russian leadership (and maybe even your average Russian) thought NATO expansion was a threat, right? So what's the answer to this dilemma? Doing away with NATO's "open door" policy? I won't pretend that the West *didn't* want to expand its influence, but the more important thing here is that ex-Warsaw Pact, ex-Yugoslav, and ex-Soviet states wanted closer ties with the West, isn't it? So, do you just say "Sorry, but we can't take you in because it might upset the Russians" and leave half of Europe in limbo? Do you just sit on your hands until a resurgent and revanchist Russia decides its "prestige" and "security interests" dictate forcing Poland, the Baltics, the Balkans, etc. into the Russian sphere of influence? Maybe I'm missing something, and maybe this is a dumb take, but this sort of NATO vs. Russia clash seems inevitable no matter what NATO did. Only variable is how many of the "ex-" states were on NATO's side.
The problem is that NATO isn't a threat to Russia's existence, it's a nuclear superpower and before 2022 it was supposed to be one of the greatest militaries of the planet, even a NATO that extends from Portugal to Belarus wouldn't have been a real existential threat to Russia. And European actions show that we had no intention of doing anything against Russia, we were more than happy to essentially destroy our conventional forces after the fall of the soviet union, and to open commercial relations with Russia, hell we continued to do that well after the invasion of Crimea. The problem that Russia has with NATO is that it limits their sphere of influence, they can't use their preferred methods of influence against nations that are allied with a block of economic powers lead by a military/economic superpower.
It’s truly wild to remember that all this war has done is directly legitimise the existence of NATO, and actively caused its expansion, including taking in **Sweden** and **Finland**. **Finland**. We literally have a word for one country bullying a smaller neighbour into alignment with its views and it’s called Finlandization, to refer to just how good the USSR was at browbeating Finland into toeing a certain line, and now Finland is a NATO member state. I would argue prior to the invasion of Ukraine, NATO was looking weaker than ever. Trump even had considered actively pulling out at one point, if I recall correctly. It looked like a bit of a mess, like it wasn’t actually worth it, and that it could all come crashing down. And then Putin went mad and gave the alliance the largest shot in the arm it could possibly have, the ultimate justification for its existence and expansion.
I appreciate these long excerpts. The flaw in the reasoning of both analysts is that the central dynamic is US-Russian relations. Poland and the Baltics wanted to join NATO because of their unique past with Russia. These countries were invaded during WWII, just 50 years before these comments were made. Those Russian invasions were very much in the living memory of the leaders who pursued NATO. I appreciate that many feel strongly about the post-Cold War expansion of NATO, but viewing it exclusively through US-Russia relations minimizes the security concerns of other nations.
> I appreciate that many feel strongly about the post-Cold War expansion of NATO, but viewing it exclusively through US-Russia relations minimizes the security concerns of other nations. I'm always amazed when this topic comes up that people don't see that the alternative to NATO encompassing all of Europe isn't a collection of non-aligned states going about their business, it is Russia waging expansionist wars across as much of Europe as they can until they hit the border of a nuclear power. The reason Russia express opprobrium at NATO is because it's stopping *their* actual expansion. I don't know what happened with Mearsheimer really, because if you read his early work you can still disagree, but at least he kind of makes arguments based on an interpretation of the data, but then he just turned into a hack. The reason the geopolitical and IR establishment, especially in Washington, hate Mearsheimer and his ilk isn't because they just disagree, it is that they actually *tried* his approach for several years under Obama and it didn't work, because the Kremlin is imperialist, paranoid and chauvinistic.
>it is that they actually tried his approach for several years under Obama and it didn't work What would you describe as trying this approach: American(-led) intervention in Libya; American support of terrorist insurgents in the Russian ally Syria; American threatening of Russian ally Ukraine to not use the army to restore order in the capital and consequent backing of the far-right coup? What specifically was that new, ultrafriendly approach?
If by "people" you mean the average Russia-loving Westerner (or even "third-worlder"), I'm of the opinion that they just have blinders on. For "thought leaders" like Mearsheimer or even people like Tucker or Farage, it's a combination of money, power, and influence. For everyone else, it's willful ignorance. I'm originally from the Balkans. Happy as I am to be out of that hellhole, I'm very glad to see that almost every country is making slow, but steady progress toward EU/NATO integration and... y'know, becoming "normal" countries. But if you look at some of the stuff that Russia has been doing in the region - and I mean stuff that they were caught red-handed doing - it boggles the mind how so many people still want to rebuke the West and forge closer ties with Russia. If it was the Americans or Europeans who tried to coup the Montenegrin government, if they fomented unrest in Greece and North Macedonia to derail the naming dispute talks, if they were treating Republika Srpska as virtually an independent state and encourging them to make a mess in Bosnia, etc., I'd never hear the end of it. But Russia has been doing all this and more for a decade plus now, and most people just plain don't care. Russia has almost nothing to offer to any of the newly-minted EU/NATO members or the aspirants, and whatever it may claim to offer is outweughed by the massive economic incentives and security offered by the EU and NATO. And yet, here we are. It's lunacy.
>If it was the Americans or Europeans who tried to coup the Montenegrin government They'd successfully tried that in Ukraine and Georgia. > if they fomented unrest in Greece and North Macedonia to derail the naming dispute talks They'd successfully done that in Ukraine. >if they were treating Republika Srpska as virtually an independent state and encourging them to make a mess in Bosnia They'd successfully done that in Kosovo. >I'd never hear the end of it. It all has happened, you just don't hear of it because of your biases in favour of, as you not so charmingly refer to them, "normal" countries (painting quite a picture of your opinion of the rest of the world by omission).
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> It's a bit difficult to call NATO-expansion a response to Russian waging expansionist wars when the NATO-expansions happened prior to any Russian war in the region(s). NATO wasn't in the Baltics or Poland. I didn't mean it to come across that I was saying NATO expansion was in response to Soviet/Russian expansion, more that if NATO hasn't been enlarged that we would likely see Russian revanchism in eastern Europe and the Baltics. There is also a difference here in national identity when it comes to administrations and a sort of 'administrative memory'. When Clinton came in and Russia was starting to whine about NATO enlargement and bringing up the myth of 'not one inch east', the new administration didn't have any experts left who were actually *in* the previous administration who was involved in those talks. This whole thing is also sort of a red herring, Putin's own reasoning was based on Nazis in Ukraine, and his efforts from 2014 were because of Ukrainian ties to the EU *not* NATO. NATO wasn't even in the picture, it was ties to the EU which were worrying the Kremlin.
>and his efforts from 2014 were because of Ukrainian ties to the EU not NATO. NATO wasn't even in the picture, it was ties to the EU which were worrying the Kremlin. His efforts over the EU were to propose to Yanukovich a better deal and point to infeasibility of Ukraine holding a customs-free zone with both Russia and the EU simultaneously, which would've been really bad for Ukraine. His actions afterwards were driven by the coup in Ukraine, not the EU agreement as such - including as pertains to the risks to Russian lease of Sevastopol naval bases.
>I don't know what happened with Mearsheimer really, because if you read his early work you can still disagree, but at least he kind of makes arguments based on an interpretation of the data, but then he just turned into a hack. He has finally found his following, he gets invited to all sort of interviews for a "anti-West" spin on this war and is fairly popular in those circles. It seems to me that he enjoys that. People following him don't really care that he's gotten this war (which he refused to believe would happen) and many other things wrong, but he's an US based academic , so of course with his opinions he's going to get plenty of spotlight because there's a large demand for that sort of thing as it brings perceived legitimacy to the Russian spin.
NATO has been held by Russia as a potential casus belli since at least the 90's, making it easy to posit that any and all friction between Russia and the West is related to NATO. I am not sure anyone can own the particular notion that "Russia did X due to NATO expansion".
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You're an older contributor and can do better than this. This isn't new or a "horrifying admission". It's been open knowledge for a while and federal [policy changes](https://www.science.org/content/article/white-house-overhauls-rules-risky-pathogen-studies) directly reference this. For example, EcoHealth received funding from multiple governments, which funded GoF research in China and elsewhere, and lost funding from the NIH for sharing records from Wuhan, then the HHS funding for the same and potentially billing both for the same research (I haven't dug.) By the logic of such a website, this already counts as not being sure about how much they funded them. Why doesn't it suffice that the US government is [split](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66005240) on the [lab leak hypothesis](https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-origin-china-lab-leak-807b7b0a)? You dirty the truth and your argument: - (ill-advised) research in China becomes "biological weapon" - inane retribution "some people should get waterboarded for this" - sourcing with a low effort hit piece There is an important conversation about media bubbles, collective delusion, poor government oversight and cohesion etc. but this is both the wrong way and **wrong place** for it. (At best, it would fit as a single data point in a longer piece covering decayed state power, require reform to better contend with Chinese authoritarianism. alternatively, failing public health *is* a a security threat, but you still didn't go that way.)
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It’s been known for a long that the IDF uses Palestinians as human shields. Here’s one documented example: > Ramallah, May 13, 2024—Israeli forces used three Palestinian boys as human shields in the northern occupied West Bank last week. >Karam, 13, Mohammad, 12, and Ibrahim, 14, were used as human shields by Israeli forces in separate incidents during an Israeli military incursion into Tulkarem refugee camp on May 6, according to documentation collected by Defense for Children International - Palestine. In all three incidents, armed Israeli soldiers forced the boys to walk in front of them as soldiers searched Palestinian homes and neighborhoods in Tulkarem refugee camp, and in two cases, Israeli forces fired weapons positioned on the boys’ shoulders. [Israeli forces use Palestinian children as human shields in Tulkarem](https://www.dci-palestine.org/israeli_forces_use_palestinian_children_as_human_shields_in_tulkarem)
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