The Sovs, demographic whizzes that they were, carefully arranged all their sub-territories to include enclaves of ethnic Russians or other available local minorities in a sort of nesting-doll arrangement. This was designed, of course, to provide the USSR and now Russia with opportunities to play the human rights card when, Europeans being what they are, the local majority begins to oppress the minority.
It's brilliant in its way, like the older imperial practice of never stationing troops in their home regions.
It is my understanding that in fact most people who live in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine are ethnic Russians (or at least, non-Ukrainians) and have no particular loyalty to Kiev anyway.
True or not, the USA is too small and poor a country now to indulge world police fantasies much longer.
The advice makes a kind of sense, as I imagine people in the 1930s could see the sense of letting Germany reoccupy some territory. Nobody wanted another war after World War I; they'd burned a whole generation.
We probably need a better answer than that one. I say we start encouraging everyone to adopt a constitutional version of our Second Amendment, and start arming ordinary people in all these places where tyrants threaten. Let's at least give them a fighting chance, and sell them some American rifles.
AAMOF, I agree with you that more people in Europe should be armed, and have no issue with private lethal aid to the Ukrainians. I have recently seen some videos of Ukrainian local defense forces who are preparing just as you suggest.
I don't see this as 1938, and I know that Putin is nothing even close--no matter how I tilt the picture, how dim the light, and how much I squint--to the threat Hitler was to Western Civ.
Sullivan came out and insisted that the Biden half of Biden-Harris had talked very sternly to Putin in their summit that Biden permitted only Russian press to watch live. Sullivan had that backwards.
As anyone who remembers Colonial Pipeline followed by Nordstream 2--just 7 months ago--can understand.
Roger Wicker (R-Outer Space) is talking nukes!
How else do you propose to correct for conventional and numerical inferiority?
If Trump were the Manchurian candidate that people keep wanting to believe that he is, here are some of the things he’d be doing:
Limiting fracking as much as he possibly could Blocking oil and gas pipelines Opening negotiations for major nuclear arms reductions Cutting U.S. military spending Trying to tamp down tensions with Russia’s ally Iran.
“Yep,” Glenn added in late 2019. “You know who did do these things? Obama. You know who supports these things now? Democrats.”
The plan that Putin actually supports is the Minsk accords, signed by Ukraine (under Poroshenko), the UK, France, Germany, and Russia, the so-called Normandy group.
These accords grant home rule to the various oblasts. At present all senior officials in the oblasts are appointed by the central government in Kiev. That would mean the Donbas had locally elected leaders.
The accords also protect the civil rights of minorities, of which there are quite a few, including Greeks, Turks, Cossacks, Tartars, Russians, Jews... The minorities would be able to use their native language in public, get instruction in it, etc.
Poroshenko was threatened by the armed Nazi militias of some of the oligarchs (who lose power under the accords), and he rejected them. Zelensky and his party were elected with large majorities, and he campaigned saying he would resolve the issue of Donbas peaceably, presumably by implementing the accords. Again, the Nazi militias threatened to kill him, and he also rejected the accords.
The US, which organized and paid for the coup that removed Yanukovsky, has also applied pressure on Kiev to abandon the accords.
So there you have it. An alliance of American neocons and Ukrainian Nazis works together to keep the civil war in Ukraine going in order to harass Russia.
"Claims to support," perhaps. Putin claims a lot of things, many of them totally unbelievable or obviously false. 'Little green men, you say? In Crimea? No idea who they might be. Those Russian troops we sent in later were just there to ensure a democratic outcome in the local elections, which of course is more likely once the area has been safely occupied by an expansionist empire.'
I also don't think the term "Nazi" is applicable here, though it is regularly applied by Russian propaganda sources that may be affecting your information feed. In fact you might want to reconsider where you're getting your information, both on this subject and on the Chinese actions in Xinjiang ("New Frontier," in Mandarin). It's not easy to find good sources -- our own media are corrupt in places, and totally blinded by class interests in others. It can be helpful to read papers from different countries; they're all biased, but at least their biases don't overlap in quite the same way.
The Sovs, demographic whizzes that they were, carefully arranged all their sub-territories to include enclaves of ethnic Russians or other available local minorities in a sort of nesting-doll arrangement. This was designed, of course, to provide the USSR and now Russia with opportunities to play the human rights card when, Europeans being what they are, the local majority begins to oppress the minority.
ReplyDeleteIt's brilliant in its way, like the older imperial practice of never stationing troops in their home regions.
It is my understanding that in fact most people who live in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine are ethnic Russians (or at least, non-Ukrainians) and have no particular loyalty to Kiev anyway.
True or not, the USA is too small and poor a country now to indulge world police fantasies much longer.
The advice makes a kind of sense, as I imagine people in the 1930s could see the sense of letting Germany reoccupy some territory. Nobody wanted another war after World War I; they'd burned a whole generation.
ReplyDeleteWe probably need a better answer than that one. I say we start encouraging everyone to adopt a constitutional version of our Second Amendment, and start arming ordinary people in all these places where tyrants threaten. Let's at least give them a fighting chance, and sell them some American rifles.
Good idea. Too late but good try.
DeleteAAMOF, I agree with you that more people in Europe should be armed, and have no issue with private lethal aid to the Ukrainians. I have recently seen some videos of Ukrainian local defense forces who are preparing just as you suggest.
ReplyDeleteI don't see this as 1938, and I know that Putin is nothing even close--no matter how I tilt the picture, how dim the light, and how much I squint--to the threat Hitler was to Western Civ.
Roger Wicker (R-Outer Space) is talking nukes!
Sullivan came out and insisted that the Biden half of Biden-Harris had talked very sternly to Putin in their summit that Biden permitted only Russian press to watch live. Sullivan had that backwards.
ReplyDeleteAs anyone who remembers Colonial Pipeline followed by Nordstream 2--just 7 months ago--can understand.
Roger Wicker (R-Outer Space) is talking nukes!
How else do you propose to correct for conventional and numerical inferiority?
Eric Hines
Worth repeating from Instapundit
ReplyDeleteAs Walter Russell Mead wrote in 2017:
If Trump were the Manchurian candidate that people keep wanting to believe that he is, here are some of the things he’d be doing:
Limiting fracking as much as he possibly could
Blocking oil and gas pipelines
Opening negotiations for major nuclear arms reductions
Cutting U.S. military spending
Trying to tamp down tensions with Russia’s ally Iran.
“Yep,” Glenn added in late 2019. “You know who did do these things? Obama. You know who supports these things now? Democrats.”
The plan that Putin actually supports is the Minsk accords, signed by Ukraine (under Poroshenko), the UK, France, Germany, and Russia, the so-called Normandy group.
ReplyDeleteThese accords grant home rule to the various oblasts. At present all senior officials in the oblasts are appointed by the central government in Kiev. That would mean the Donbas had locally elected leaders.
The accords also protect the civil rights of minorities, of which there are quite a few, including Greeks, Turks, Cossacks, Tartars, Russians, Jews... The minorities would be able to use their native language in public, get instruction in it, etc.
Poroshenko was threatened by the armed Nazi militias of some of the oligarchs (who lose power under the accords), and he rejected them. Zelensky and his party were elected with large majorities, and he campaigned saying he would resolve the issue of Donbas peaceably, presumably by implementing the accords. Again, the Nazi militias threatened to kill him, and he also rejected the accords.
The US, which organized and paid for the coup that removed Yanukovsky, has also applied pressure on Kiev to abandon the accords.
So there you have it. An alliance of American neocons and Ukrainian Nazis works together to keep the civil war in Ukraine going in order to harass Russia.
I was reading Gary Kasparov on the subject this morning and will likely post something on this, despite my lack of general knowledge of Ukraine.
ReplyDeleteEric Hines, I assume your question is t-i-c.
ReplyDeleteIf serious, the answer is, we haven't even established a reason for war yet.
The US military had significant disadvantages in all its recent conflicts, should we have reached for the nukes then too?
I'm old enough to remember when it was considered a good thing not to go looking for fights.
The plan that Putin actually supports is...
ReplyDelete"Claims to support," perhaps. Putin claims a lot of things, many of them totally unbelievable or obviously false. 'Little green men, you say? In Crimea? No idea who they might be. Those Russian troops we sent in later were just there to ensure a democratic outcome in the local elections, which of course is more likely once the area has been safely occupied by an expansionist empire.'
I also don't think the term "Nazi" is applicable here, though it is regularly applied by Russian propaganda sources that may be affecting your information feed. In fact you might want to reconsider where you're getting your information, both on this subject and on the Chinese actions in Xinjiang ("New Frontier," in Mandarin). It's not easy to find good sources -- our own media are corrupt in places, and totally blinded by class interests in others. It can be helpful to read papers from different countries; they're all biased, but at least their biases don't overlap in quite the same way.
"... they're all biased, but at least their biases don't overlap in quite the same way." Sadly, this.
ReplyDelete