Current Affairs Ukraine

[everton fan number one]

Here's a video of young wealthy Russian kids coming out in support of the war, with their G-wagons. Anybody suggesting that Russians are turning against Putin are out of their minds.

Better logistical organisation than army unit central

 

[devogue]

 

[Noisy noise annoys]

No idea how true this is, but still:

What is going on in negotiations between Russia and Ukraine? | The Jerusalem Post

Zelensky can fortify Ukraine's independence but will have to pay a heavy price, the sources said

m.jpost.com

It does sound very plausible. Terrifying for Ukraine, twist,stick or fold.... it is easy for me to say but they need to say no to those demands.

 

[Noisy noise annoys]

This is too much

 

[Glasshalffull]

The disconnect here is that international relations scholarship generally treats counterfactuals as fundamentally unknowable. We don't know what would have happened, because we don't have a working time machine or the ability to cross into that reality. (At least, I don't. But then, I wouldn't tell you if I had one of those, now would I?)

We can put a probability estimate on the counterfactual. We can say that the actions that were taken surely aggravated Putin, which likely pushed him towards war, based upon his actions and what we know about security relationships. We don't know where his tipping point was, and therefore we do not know what he would have done in the absence of those actions. Insisting on reducing the counterfactual to a knowable binary isn't considered a good way to think about uncertainty as a result. It's considered superior to think about the counterfactual as a Schrodinger's cat box, where we can say with some (but not great) confidence that what we did moved the odds towards the cat in the box being dead rather than alive. What we don't know is what the dice roll that determined the outcome was, and therefore whether a change in tack would have resulted in a different outcome.

There's no need to respond. I just wanted to address the misunderstanding regarding where the author is coming from, versus where you're coming from in the paragraph with the bolded terms. If you want to criticize the article for sidestepping the debate about whether Putin is hyperrational and security-maximizing or bent on reassembling the Soviet Union, that's a fair criticism. I think the author would argue that entering that debate isn't the point of the article, and that the point is to bring to light how the "us vs. them, good vs. evil" framing that a reductivist media pushes both conceals our hypocrisy from a public that is just now tuning in, and risks sparking an escalatory spiral with the potential for dire consequences.

Not continuing to debate, but just wanted to point out a few things :

1. I would respectfully suggest that you slightly curtail your use of uncommon terms and multi-syllabic words. The average human mind, such as mine, can only process so many syllables befire it gets gummed up, or ceases to listen on grounds of self-preservation.

2. Anyone using a hideous term like 'counterfactual' is automatically excluded from my Christmas card list , so please don't look at your post box in hope, come December.

3. I have a friend, much more familiar with Russians that I, who would concur with the NATO expansion etc provocation theory. She says that in the Boris (I'll drink to that!) Yeltsin and early Putin days, the West had a window of opportunity for genuine, honest, engagement with Russia, but blew it, leading back to the current situation of mutual suspicion and hostility. I still firmly believe that you and she are substantially in error, but I have to concede the microscopic possibility that I might be wrong.

Have a good evening!

 

[tsubaki]

It does sound very plausible. Terrifying for Ukraine, twist,stick or fold.... it is easy for me to say but they need to say no to those demands.

It’s an awful decision. The only thing I’d add is whether Zelensky thinks he can win, and how. If it’s based solely on NATO getting involved at the level needed, that’s never going to happen. I am not sure the economic damage stopping Russia will either, tbh.

 

[Yarrgh]

If thats actually true, then imagine how fast the Russian people will be up in arms when its not just their heating costs that went up.

Indeed. But we're also not facing 15 years in prison if sufficient people don't feel the same.

 

[Noisy noise annoys]

It’s an awful decision. The only thing I’d add is whether Zelensky thinks he can win, and how. If it’s based solely on NATO getting involved at the level needed, that’s never going to happen. I am not sure the economic damage stopping Russia will either, tbh.

He cannot "win" in a typical sense, he can possibly drag it out and sustain untold damage and deaths as a result, but even he knows "winning" is not on the carsds. It feels like the Russians are surrounding key cities, at their own pace, and wll begin to squeeze. Surrender or die feels like the long term option....

 

[DualityNSNO]

This is too much

This is the tip of the iceberg, sadly.

 

[Chewbacca]

Indeed. But we're also not facing 15 years in prison if sufficient people don't feel the same.

True, it’s only 10 years in theUK

 

[Martin Alvito]

Not continuing to debate, but just wanted to point out a few things :

1. I would respectfully suggest that you slightly curtail your use of uncommon terms and multi-syllabic words. The average human mind, such as mine, can only process so many syllables befire it gets gummed up, or ceases to listen on grounds of self-preservation.

2. Anyone using a hideous term like 'counterfactual' is automatically excluded from my Christmas card list , so please don't look at your post box in hope, come December.

3. I have a friend, much more familiar with Russians that I, who would concur with the NATO expansion etc provocation theory. She says that in the Boris (I'll drink to that!) Yeltsin and early Putin days, the West had a window of opportunity for genuine, honest, engagement with Russia, but blew it, leading back to the current situation of mutual suspicion and hostility. I still firmly believe that you and she are substantially in error, but I have to concede the microscopic possibility that I might be wrong.

Have a good evening!

*laughs* Sorry, but that's the terminology of game theory and IR. I didn't create it. The options are jargon and writing an essay, in order to talk about this stuff with any level of precision once the hood comes up and the math starts leaking out. I didn't feel like writing an essay, so you received the jargon and I left it to you to decide whether you wanted to use your Google Fu.

As I said, there's not a lot of point in debating the Putin motivation theories. Either he'll cough up some definitive evidence one way or the other, or he won't. I would say there is general agreement that there was a window for engagement. Whether the initial waves of NATO expansion or other US actions slammed that window shut just ends up circling back around to the Putin motivation problem.

 

[Tin-Tin]

McDonalds felt the pressure

 

[Groucho]

 

[Yarrgh]

True, it’s only 10 years in theUK

Probably more true than I'd care to admit.

 

[devogue]

hopefully true