I have read 1000 hot takes about the Sudetenland and the Anschluss, but I have yet to read a single one about the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Putin's ranting about the historical fiction of Ukraine mirrors Stalin's grievance about the independent republics that were created after WWI. To the Soviets, even Poland was a fictional country, so dividing it between Prussia and Greater Russia wasn't an act of war so much as it was righting a historic wrong. Putin's actions reflect the same Tsarist mentality that Russia has had for centuries, no matter what their government. Nuclear war is the #1 threat to humanity, no matter what your feelings about global warming. Since the 1950s, we've lived every single day in a situation where the world could easily not exist tomorrow. With that in mind, we obviously need to tread carefully with respect to our response. But we should also remember that Putin's grand aims are nothing short of the restoration of the Russian Empire. That isn't hyperbole. He absolutely will go after the next country if this gambit works. And then the next. I'm sure the administration is considering the feasibility of enforcing a no fly zone. That should absolutely be on the table. But for now, I think that whatever economic measures can be imposed, should be. No holds barred. And Chinese engagement on this is critical. I'm not one to give a lot of slack to the Chinese government, but we may need their help here, and you know they're not helping for free. Anyway, sorry for the Putinesque rambling. Just thinking out loud, or whatever you call it in text.
China also used it as pretext to invade Tibet. Iraq also used it as pretext to invade Kuwait. For that matter, the United States used it as pretext to invade Texas, not to mention Hawaii and the Philippines. "We're not invading, we're just coming home" has been used since the Pelleponessian Wars. The Russians do not have reliable first-strike capability. They never have. The situation is far worse for them than it was in the '80s, when bored amateurs can retask privateer surveillance satellites, where ECHELON has become the only legitimate SIGINT dragnet, where US ELINT capability has advanced with Moore's Law while Russian ELINT and ASAT capability is firmly mired in the Cold War. The Soviets would not have developed Perimeter, and the Russians would not have maintained it, if they figured they had a hope of pulling the trigger first. As famously illustrated by Stanislav Petrov, the Soviet/Russian nuclear chain of command is a long way from iron-clad. There are plenty of people who can say "naah." Troops to Ukraine? That's a mobilization thing and everyone can see everyone else doing it. Lots of them are into it. Pushing the button? That's an individual act that a whole lot of individuals need to be on board for. I have some strong emotions about this. That said, I believe that nuclear war is vanishingly unlikely. The Russian arsenal is much diminished from where it was, and their developments - contrary to popular opinion - have been largely symbolic. Putin has authorized all sorts of harum-scarum nightmare weapons but the actual quantity is low enough to be worthless - as you're fond of pointing out, at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Khruschev had what, three nukes? We've never seen a 3m22.. They were "virtual firing" them over the Mediterranean last week: line up, hit the pickle, but don't actually drop ordinance" - but yesterday Twitter was full of slow-ass subsonic not-quite Tomahawks lazily wandering over Donbas. If you wanted to spook the shit out of the west, wouldn't you, you know, use a couple of your nightmare weapons? Other despots do.Putin's ranting about the historical fiction of Ukraine mirrors Stalin's grievance about the independent republics that were created after WWI.
Since the 1950s, we've lived every single day in a situation where the world could easily not exist tomorrow.
I’m prepared to be disappointed. If Western countries don’t cut Russia off from SWIFT, and if China isn’t enough onboard in a tangible way, then all that’s happening is theater.
We have never as a society (those of us under age 80, anyway) been asked to sacrifice for the national good (obviously some people younger than that were forced into service in Vietnam, but that's not really what I'm talking about). It would be interesting to see the response if the government said that due to China's hostility, we're cutting off trade with them, and we ask you, our citizens, to go without some things that you feel you need for some period of time until other manufacturing arrangements are made or China relents. We were asked to sacrifice some freedoms in the name of health and that drew, um, mixed reviews? So I don't know what the same in national security interests would do, but I can't imagine it would be much better. Sugar rations, anyone?