The Russia/Ukraine War Thread

[SilentSam]

Hmmmm..

 

 

 

 

[SilentSam]

 

 

[PistolPete13]

On 11/19/2023 at 11:55 PM, AatuD2 said:

 

This is the truth and simple facts. 

I expect many of you to have trouble coming to terms with this and calling it Russian propaganda. The news coverage in North America has been horrible and I imagine that it's just as bad as actual Russian propaganda in the East. 

 

John Maersheimer has been right all along, and we're talking a 20 year track record here. 

[SilentSam]

as someone said , .. “Money shot” .

 

 

 

 

[SilentSam]

 

 

[SilentSam]

 

 

[SilentSam]

This is heartwarming..

 

 

 

[SilentSam]

 

 

[SilentSam]

 

 

[SilentSam]

Pledging ….   Just get them on the rails !

 

 

 

 

[SilentSam]

 

 

 

[SilentSam]

 

 

 

[SilentSam]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SilentSam]

 

Ooolala 

 

[PhillipBlunt]

30 minutes ago, SilentSam said:

 

 

Pure stupidity. Assassinating a world leader right now would be catastrophic. 

[SilentSam]

6 minutes ago, PhillipBlunt said:

Pure stupidity. Assassinating a world leader right now would be catastrophic. 

there have been over 10 attempts at Zelensky ,.     It’s between 2 countries.

Putin is a terrorist and wanted at the Haugue for War crimes,.  
He is also responsible for most of the destabilization in the World .

personaly PB ,   I still stand by the notion that if you can cut off the head of the Snake,.  The body will die.

 

He holds guns to all of his Generals heads , that’s why all of this is happening.

 

His decisions to die by.

[PhillipBlunt]

6 minutes ago, SilentSam said:

there have been over 10 attempts at Zelensky ,.     It’s between 2 countries.

It’s not really “between” just “two countries”. 

6 minutes ago, SilentSam said:

Putin is a terrorist and wanted at the Haugue for War crimes,

Bush should be tried for his war crimes at The Hague too. Ever heard of Mohammed bin Salman? 

6 minutes ago, SilentSam said:

He is also responsible for most of the destabilization in the World .

The world is unstable because of multiple causes. 

6 minutes ago, SilentSam said:

personaly PB ,   I still stand by the notion that if you can cut off the head of the Snake,.  The body will die.

No. The body will send missiles to every major city and vaporize them. Causing humanity’s extinction event. 

6 minutes ago, SilentSam said:

He holds guns to all of his Generals heads , that’s why all of this is happening.

 

His decisions to die by.

I don’t see it being anywhere near that simple in reality. 

[I.Am.Ironman]

1 hour ago, SilentSam said:

there have been over 10 attempts at Zelensky ,.     It’s between 2 countries.

Putin is a terrorist and wanted at the Haugue for War crimes,.  
He is also responsible for most of the destabilization in the World .

personaly PB ,   I still stand by the notion that if you can cut off the head of the Snake,.  The body will die.

 

He holds guns to all of his Generals heads , that’s why all of this is happening.

 

His decisions to die by.

 

I don't think you kill Putin. He is known and predictable to a degree. You know the saying... The devil you know is better than the devil you don't.

[Spur1]

I think you take out Putin if you can not to mention the future fool Trump. 

[RomanPer]

1 hour ago, PhillipBlunt said:

Pure stupidity. Assassinating a world leader right now would be catastrophic. 

 

Well, I’m having really hard time considering putin a “world leader”. By the same logic, was hitler a “world leader”? Plus, all this is a moot point anyway, since putin is already dead. What we see is a body double. Patrushev is now running russia.

[DSVII]

On 11/19/2023 at 11:55 PM, AatuD2 said:

 

This is the truth and simple facts. 

I expect many of you to have trouble coming to terms with this and calling it Russian propaganda. The news coverage in North America has been horrible and I imagine that it's just as bad as actual Russian propaganda in the East. 

 

John Maersheimer has been right all along, and we're talking a 20 year track record here. 

 

The 'realist' framework of international relations has been outdated since the Cold War IMO. At least when applied to this situation. I'm taking everything this guy says with a huge grain of salt.

 

https://euideas.eui.eu/2022/07/11/john-mearsheimers-lecture-on-ukraine-why-he-is-wrong-and-what-are-the-consequences/

 

Quote

A controversial thesis

Mearsheimer’s main point is that the United States and its allies are to blame for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine since they allegedly pushed for Ukraine’s NATO membership, the prospect of which Russia has seen as an existential threat. There are at least four reasons why this account is wanting.

 

First, it ignores the fact that Ukrainians – like other Eastern Europeans – have been actively seeking NATO membership to protect themselves from the Russian threat. They did not need to be pushed, they have desperately wanted to join. They first officially applied for membership in 2008 and repeatedly declared it a policy priority after 2014. However, in Mearsheimer’s account, Ukrainians appear only as victims of Russia’s invasion, deprived of any agency. Ascribing to them a uniquely passive role is an analytical shortcoming that turns the blame game on its head, and an illustration of how condescendingly some Western academics and pundits regard Central and Eastern Europeans: as clueless pawns in a geopolitical game played by the “great” powers.

 

Second, Mearsheimer’s account is at least partially incomplete since, in isolation, it cannot satisfactorily explain the timing of the invasion or why other pro-Western countries in Russia’s immediate neighbourhood have avoided a similar fate. When Russia’s invasion started, it still appeared extremely unlikely that Ukraine would join NATO in the foreseeable future. What is more, the prospect that NATO, in the implausible scenario of Ukrainian membership, would launch an attack against a nuclear power is foolish. Indeed, Ukraine joining NATO would hardly be a credible military threat to Russia and, if Crimea remained in Russian hands, Russia’s key strategic interests would be largely preserved. All this suggests that any serious explanation of the invasion needs to consider additional factors such as Russia’s domestic political situation; the ideological and symbolic threat a democratic and prosperous Ukraine would represent to Russia’s incumbent political regime; and the potential desire of an ageing dictator to conquer immortality through territorial expansion. Without considering these factors and assessing them against solid empirical evidence, we will never understand what triggered the invasion.

 

Third, Mearsheimer’s explanation draws on his own version of the realist theory of international relations, offensive realism, which is not an overly reliable guide to the behaviour of contemporary states. Offensive realism holds that great powers such as Russia cannot tolerate perceived security threats in their neighbourhoods. However, here as elsewhere, offensive realism often fails on empirical grounds. The breakup of the Soviet Bloc, the post-Cold War military weakness of Germany, and peace among major European powers are just a few examples of such failures. Even if Russia really considered the prospect of Ukraine’s accession to NATO as an existential threat, which is far from certain despite Russia’s official rhetoric, there was absolutely no certainty that it would react in the way it did to Ukraine’s sovereign decision to seek joining the alliance. It is not by accident that the invasion took many members of Russia’s political establishment by surprise. Given the variety of alternative scenarios that could unfold, blaming the United States, NATO, or even Ukraine – if we acknowledge its active pursuit of NATO membership – for the war is not only morally wrong (i.e., wars are always started by those who pull the trigger, not those who join a defensive military alliance), but it is also intellectually unsatisfactory.

 

Fourth, one would hope that such a controversial thesis would be borne out by strong empirical evidence. Yet, the evidence presented during the lecture largely boils down to an uncritical reading of selective official statements made by the Russian leadership. Furthermore, the justification of the use of this “evidence”, referring to the alleged sincerity of Russia’s president, reveals further cracks in the credibility and scientific value of the central argument.

Weakness of the empirical evidence

Why should one believe what Russia’s leaders say? “Because Putin rarely lies to foreign audiences”, claimed Mearsheimer. He went on to pre-empt disagreements by reminding the lecture hall that he had authored a book on lying in international politics, which finds that political leaders lie to other countries much less often than we think. This attempt to mute criticism regrettably failed to mention that the book is not based on systematic research (page 12 of the book); that lying is rare particularly for democracies like the United States (p. 13), which Russia is not; and that the frequency of lying largely depends on the definition of what lying is (p. 26), which is somewhat restrictive in the book at hand. During his talk, Mearsheimer thus remained oblivious to Russia’s numerous lies on public record, including Putin’s original denial of any involvement in Crimea in 2014, which was followed by open boasting about the annexation a few months later. The US Department of State even went so far as to officially publish two 10-item lists of documented Russia’s falsehoods on Ukraine in 2014.

 

Mearsheimer’s lack of critical scrutiny of Russia’s statements contrasts with his refusal to consider that Russia could have imperial ambitions and that the invasion’s objective could (also) be territorial. While he was willing to take selected statements on the existential threat by Putin at face value, he would accept the imperial motivation only if somebody proved that Putin “thought it was a desirable goal, […] a feasible goal, […] [and] that he intended to pursue that goal”. It is hard to imagine what kind of evidence Mearsheimer would like to see as Putin has been quite clear in his repeated pre-invasion statements, denying the legitimacy and even the very existence of the independent Ukrainian state. On the eve of the invasion, Putin explicitly argued that Ukraine never had “real statehood,” and said it was an integral part of Russia’s “own history, culture, spiritual space.” After the invasion, he went on to compare himself to the 18^th century Tsar, Peter the Great, and to declare that Russia was simply reclaiming its territory.

 

Engaging in curious intellectual gymnastics, Mearsheimer defended his central thesis by claiming that while Putin’s objectives escalated during the invasion into imperial ambitions, Russia originally did not want to annex territory before the invasion. Why? “Because there were only 190,000 soldiers in Russia’s invading army, which is far too small a force to vanquish and occupy Ukraine”. Yet again, this argument does not hold much water when we remember that Russia clearly targeted Kiev from the first day of the invasion and that it suffered terrible military losses arguably due to poor intelligence. All available evidence points to a disastrous miscalculation by the Kremlin leadership consisting, among others, in a serious over-estimation of the effectiveness of its own army, and of the popular support for Russia within Ukraine. Russian may have assembled fewer troops than would be normally necessary for controlling a country the size of Ukraine because it expected little resistance. Its military operations were supposed to be backed by a network of Ukrainian collaborators, most of whom, however, may have existed only in reports prepared by Russia’s security officials. According to Ukrainian official sources, which certainly need to be interpreted carefully in wartime, Putin discovered that his secret services may have embezzled $5 billion allocated from the Russian budget for subversive operations in Ukraine between 2014 and 2022.

 

More generally, denying the plausibility of Russia’s imperial objectives oddly clashes with the core tenets of Mearsheimer’s own theory and a large amount of circumstantial evidence from Central and Eastern Europe. Offensive realism argues that great powers aim to maximise their material capabilities. If Russian intelligence reports suggested Ukrainians would not resists their invaders, why wouldn’t Putin want to annex Ukraine’s territory? And why would his plans escalate from intervention to annexation when the invasion did not go as planned, as Mearsheimer claims? On the contrary, such escalation would have made much more sense if the invasion had proceeded smoothly. By questioning Russia’s imperial ambitions, Mearsheimer turns a blind eye to the nostalgia for the Soviet empire in Russian public opinion, the persistence of a hierarchical and imperial worldview among Russian elites and in the Russian media, and Russia’s meddling in the politics of Central European countries. Moreover, in the months leading up to the invasion, Russia required a Ukrainian pledge to not join NATO, but also a NATO pledge to withdraw all troops from the territories of its post-1990 members in Central and Eastern Europe. Clearly, Russia’s ambitions do not stop with Ukraine. That is fully in line with offensive realism, but it runs counter to Mearsheimer’s current thesis, which implies that if the US did not push for Ukraine’s NATO membership, there would be no “crisis.”

 

 

Edited November 22, 2023 by DSVII

[Ralph.]

6 hours ago, RomanPer said:

 

Well, I’m having really hard time considering putin a “world leader”. By the same logic, was hitler a “world leader”? Plus, all this is a moot point anyway, since putin is already dead. What we see is a body double. Patrushev is now running russia.

I've seen this posted around a few times, with pics that do highlight differences suggesting body doubles. I definitely believe body doubles are in play, without a doubt.

 

How confident are you that he is indeed dead? Given his health record (combined with how deceptively Russia tries to operate) I don't find it outside the realm of possibility.

[I.Am.Ironman]

14 minutes ago, Ralph. said:

I've seen this posted around a few times, with pics that do highlight differences suggesting body doubles. I definitely believe body doubles are in play, without a doubt.

 

How confident are you that he is indeed dead? Given his health record (combined with how deceptively Russia tries to operate) I don't find it outside the realm of possibility.

 

Within the realm of possibility? Yes. Likely? Not in my opinion.

[Muscatel Marauder]

 

[PhillipBlunt]

8 hours ago, RomanPer said:

 

Well, I’m having really hard time considering putin a “world leader”. By the same logic, was hitler a “world leader”? Plus, all this is a moot point anyway, since putin is already dead. What we see is a body double. Patrushev is now running russia.

Well, he actually is still the Russian president until he's voted out (highly unlikely) or removed, so what you consider him is a moot point. You do remember how WWI was started right? An assassination. 

 

A body double? Okay then. Any proof to this conspiracy theory?