History in the Making: Russian Invasion

In reply to AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) :

I did 

In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :

Well, I didn't see anything controversial with your referenced post. No matter who occupied the White House, this was going to happen, Putin has been building toward this for the last 20+ years.

Hive,

Let's please not flounder this thread.

Remember, people are getting killed and this may be an important resource for some in harms way.

... and that concludes are demonstration as to how Russia's and China's meddling in our internal politics and issues has poisoned are ability to discuss important topics...

Yes, Putin has been very clear in bemoaning the break up of the USSR, and re-integrating Ukraine into Russia would be a big step towards building up some semblance of past "glories". That much is clear.

volvoclearinghouse said:

bruceman said:

I watched a PBS show called Frontline yesterday that was about Putin and his rise to power. I have come to the conclusion his purpose in Ukraine could be to destabilize democracy in USA by helping a certain ex-president (who appears to want the power Putin has) get re-elected.

I think that's just laying bare the bald-faced partisan bias of PBS.

I didn't see the program but the way I read the post you are referring to is that the poster came to that conclusion not the program.

Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) :

I did 

Thanks, and actually looking back at it, I was attributing what someone else had replied to you. That whole aspect of the subject is one to not discuss on this forum. Different universes exist there.

I will be very curious, assuming this thing ends with some sort of treaty, what will be done with the sanctions.

As someone noted previously, somewhat pessimistically, that they expect things to return to pretty much what it was, almost ignoring what happened.  I suspect it will not be to far from that realistically.

I would really hope these sanctions are not just for being in the act of murdering Ukrainians and once they stop, they are not OK.  E.g. all the companies that are no longer active in Russia, if there is a peace treaty tomorrow, with they just start up again?

Obviously we have to careful no to set up a Versailles, post WWI situation, but I would think some sort of punishment should be present.  The concept of somehow effectively making Russia help pay to rebuild Ukraine would be nice, but I am not sure how exactly that would be organized.

Has a country ever actually paid reparations to a country it invaded?

Back on tangent

What makes fuel prices rise? A shortage.

What does Russua want to sell very badly right now to help inflate the Ruble? Fuel. 

What benefit does Ukraine have in striking a target so far across the border when the same assets can be much better served striking hostile participants in country? Nothing.

The Ukrainians need to respond with "prove it was us"

06HHR (Forum Supporter) said:

Has a country ever actually paid reparations to a country it invaded?

Some could say the US did (Japan and Germany).  Of course we were entirely justified in those invasions (Okinawa is technically Japan, so yes we did invade a bit).  I don't actually know where that money came from, but I am pretty sure it was the US.

I am not talking about directly paying for reparations.  It seems very likely they will simply refuse to do that.  I am more thinking along the lines of captured assets being used to pay for reconstruction.

aircooled said:

... and that concludes are demonstration as to how Russia's and China's meddling in our internal politics and issues has poisoned are ability to discuss important topics...

We don't need their help, we have been doing a good job on our own 

06HHR (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :

Well, I didn't see anything controversial with your referenced post. No matter who occupied the White House, this was going to happen, Putin has been building toward this for the last 20+ years.

I tend to agree.  In hindsight, mistakes have been made in both administrations, but while hints may have been given I don't think anyone really expected Putin to do something like this .  But no matter what anyone does, somebody won't be happy about it and playing the blame game accomplishes nothing. 

In the end, it will all be interesting fodder for future historians to analyze.

bobzilla said:

aircooled said:

... and that concludes are demonstration as to how Russia's and China's meddling in our internal politics and issues has poisoned are ability to discuss important topics...

We don't need their help, we have been doing a good job on our own 

Possibly.  But that is a topic far beyond the scope of this discussion. Suffice to say there have been events in the recent past that laid the foundations for the current US situation and outside forces played their part in building upon those foundations. And that situation may have started Putin down the path to thinking this invasion would benefit him.  Which it still may... at this point we aren't entirely sure what his goals are. 

In reply to 06HHR (Forum Supporter) :"Has a country ever actually paid reparations to a country it invaded?"

That's a really salient question. The Treaty of Versailles after WWI hit Germany with all sorts of reparations, and the main effect was to assist the rise of Hitler. After WWII we did the opposite. The Marshall Plan helped Germany and Japan get onto their feet again, and the result was that they become among our most trusted allies - especially offsetting China and the USSR.

I read an article by Andrew Sullivan recently who suggested that when the USSR broke up, we should have enacted something similar to the Marshall Plan to help out Russia and the Eastern bloc countries. It would have been very expensive, but might have produced a much more favorable geopolitical situation. 

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

06HHR (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :

Well, I didn't see anything controversial with your referenced post. No matter who occupied the White House, this was going to happen, Putin has been building toward this for the last 20+ years.

I tend to agree.  In hindsight, mistakes have been made in both administrations, but while hints may have been given I don't think anyone really expected Putin to do something like this .  But no matter what anyone does, somebody won't be happy about it and playing the blame game accomplishes nothing. 

In the end, it will all be interesting fodder for future historians to analyze.

The bottom line is that like science, we can know a lot but will never know everything. The best that we can do is to use our good sense to its fullest and not let our emotions run us astray.

Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to 06HHR (Forum Supporter) :"Has a country ever actually paid reparations to a country it invaded?"

That's a really salient question. The Treaty of Versailles after WWI hit Germany with all sorts of reparations, and the main effect was to assist the rise of Hitler. After WWII we did the opposite. The Marshall Plan helped Germany and Japan get onto their feet again, and the result was that they become among our most trusted allies - especially offsetting China and the USSR.

I read an article by Andrew Sullivan recently who suggested that when the USSR broke up, we should have enacted something similar to the Marshall Plan to help out Russia and the Eastern bloc countries. It would have been very expensive, but might have produced a much more favorable geopolitical situation. 

One could argue there were cultural differences that made the situations post-WW2 and post-Cold War a bit different. 

Despite the strong anti-German sentiment during the war, there was still quite a bit of German heritage in the US which made it a little easier to reintegrate Germany back into the western world. 

Japan was a bit different, but the population there was so defeated, they didn't have much of a choice. 

The end of the Cold War was a bit different. There was no decisive victory. No welcome home parades. Life in the US sort of just continued on with a cultural shrug.  We won the war by flat out-spending the USSR, and while we are still feeling the repercussions of that spending (and probably will for some time), it wasn't really in the forefront of the average American mind.  And there was a huge amount of investment into the former Soviet block countries, except it was done more through private corporate investment. Investments those companies are now having trouble with. Investments that sometimes strengthened the oligarch society currently entrenched there.

Russia has generally not considered their country part of the West, nor part of Europe.  Over the years, I got the impression much of Europe tried to bring Russia into the rest of Europe and likely had some level of faith that the more integrated their economies became (oil, gas, wheat, etc.), the less likely an event like this would occur. 

Obviously, there have been some miscalculations. But in order to prevent a repeat, we need to at try to understand how we arrived at this point.  Putin seems to have a strong fear of the West. Why?  Perhaps he saw that economic integration as a threat to his power and/or to Russia as a country. If there's one thing about capitalism, change can happen quickly. Sometimes more quickly than some are prepared to accept.

Just for the record my post earlier was not meant to start a political discussion about American presidents and/or "who is dealing with Putin better." It was an answer to the previous question of what Putin's own perception could be, and what leverage HE might think he has over American presidents (or other foreign) presidents for that matter, and whether or not those would actually affect his calculations at all regarding this invasion.

 Putin has seemingly had this (and other) invasion plan in his mind since the fall of the Soviet Union,  I don't think the opinion of any foreign leaders (American or otherwise) is of particular consequence to Putin except perhaps Xi, at the moment, and perhaps Modi - since the two of them are essentially the only ones keeping Russia's economy remotely afloat.

So apologies If my post came off sounding like it was about domestic American politics.  In my job we often look at our own policies within the context of how our opponents view them, rather than how we ourselves view them for whether we ourselves like them., And that's the only point I was attempting to make. I have edited my prior post to remove anything that would be seen as political commentary on any individual American politician.

06HHR (Forum Supporter) said:

Has a country ever actually paid reparations to a country it invaded?

Yes.  It took Germany about 100 years to pay off their reparations for WWI...

I think Iraq also paid reparations to Kuwait.  

QuasiMofo (John Brown) said:

Back on tangent  *SNIP*

What benefit does Ukraine have in striking a target so far across the border when the same assets can be much better served striking hostile participants in country? Nothing.

Unless there was jet fuel in that facility and now the Russians have had their supply chain cut.

I have nothing to back that theory up.  But the planes can't bomb you if they can't fly.

Again, no facts to back that up.

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

Putin seems to have a strong fear of the West. Why?

Democratization.

If you look at the effects of Syria- which Putin is very much helping the destabilization- the pattern of trying to destabilize the West has been a long term goal of Putin.  This is just another version of the same thing.  Both are killing a lot of people and both are pushing massive amounts of refugees into the EU very quickly.

Pretty sad that his best effort is to try to make the west worse off, as opposed to working to make Russia better. 

If the EU deals with this well, the irony is that the immigration really helps their aging, and not expanding population.

But the whole goal of destabilizing everyone else in the world by murdering and displacing people is one of the key reasons vladdy needs to go.  It would be SO much more productive if he made Russia an easier place to work with.  Even with China's threat to the West, and the massive problems they still have- this is light years ahead of where they were in the 90s.   Vlad has done pretty much nothing to make russia better- especially in comparison with his Communist neighbor.  

Driven5 said:

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

Putin seems to have a strong fear of the West. Why?

Democratization.

Can't be it, he could have easily followed China's path- which has progressed light years past Russia, and they are far, far from being a democracy.  

alfadriver said:

Driven5 said:

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

Putin seems to have a strong fear of the West. Why?

Democratization.

Can't be it, he could have easily followed China's path- which has progressed light years past Russia, and they are far, far from being a democracy.  

China doesn't share a land border with a bunch of former vassal states that have generally done way better under free elections.