The West however cannot be seen to do nothing, so sanctions are the logical next step.
A part of me thinks that Putin at 69 years old, senses that he have to create a great legacy for himself and invading Ukraine seems like a perfect opportunity.
I sincerely hope that the sanctions will include removing Russia from all sports and excluded from as much trade as possible.
That said, I'm worried that the sanctions will be weak/ineffectual as I doubt NATO countries will want to risk economic harm, especially in Europe where they've allowed themselves to become so dependent on Russian natural gas. Personally I think Ukrainian lives are worth an increase in energy prices.
And now gas and oil prices seem to be rising, triggering Biden to state that these increases will be dealt with.
So no, I'm not optimistic about sanctions even though I also think Ukraine must come first.
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/ukraine-russ...
I agree the military intervention risk seems low, but what about economic intervention? Isn't this going to have some serious economic repercussions for Russia?
I'd say they've anticipated those serious economic repercussions to some extent. But I also suspect Russians may be more willing to tolerate things such as a weak economy if it helps achieve other goals. I kind of see it like a parallel with Russia shooting a bullet at its own economy, while the Soviet Union in the 20th century shot plenty of bullets at its own people...for various reasons.
She said, they are now in a state, where they can't be pressured trough gas deliveries from Russia. Whether this is true, I have no idea.
You can't build LNG transfer depots to replace half of your pipeline deliveries in years, let alone weeks.
Looking at this, Russian LNG imports makes up 20%. Doesn't seem to be completly impossible for the other countries on that list to cover for it at maybe a higher price. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51358
It looks like Putin is making the correct calculation that the west would suffer more.
Look at the Chinese reaction, it is very unlikely he would be making this move without at least tacit Chinese support. He has an outlet for all of that energy and grain.
Where will Europe recover that supply from?
Oil is fungible to a significant degree, but oil politics are not.
The key balance here is with the Iranians and the saudis. In all likelihood the nato response hinges on how much support they can count in the Middle East.
What worries me is the idea that some ex-soviet apparatchik (someone like Vladimir himself) might want to take eye-for-eye, and reduce western infrastructure to the same level of ruin of the Soviet’s, after ‘89.
Their industry and economy was struggling and fell apart overnight but the West wasn’t happy to just win, it wanted to Win Big. We rubbed the unproductivity of it in their face, kicked the market wide open to fire sales and mass demobilization… these humiliations create resentment, and you never know who’s the more spitefully determined.
I'm not familiar with this; can you elaborate or link me to something?
Russia's been sanctioned for nearly a decade. They're probably the most resource-rich nation on earth and have a nearly fully self-sufficient economy. What little they need they can get from China.
Also, when people look at Russia's GDP, they need to look at REAL numbers (ie. Adjusted for PPP). Russia's real GDP is ~3x higher than their nominal GDP (because sanctions drive down currency trade and make the nominal number basically useless).
It might look so like we have a self-sufficient economy, but it's not true. We have lots of resources, but to mine them and produce things you need technology. We're mostly importing needed technology and it's not something that can be changed fast. And things didn't change much for the last 10 years. China is a good partner, they can produce and export all needed tech things, but I doubt that in the current world is a good option to depend on one partner.
I'm Russian and I don't understand the reasons for the invasion of Ukraine. And I don't agree with our country leaders' decisions. It doesn't look the peace could be brought by war and aggression. And I'm feeling that we already lost. We lost opportunities to partner with Ukraine and other countries. We lost momentum to grow our own economy.
When you talk with people around you in Russia, does support for the invasion feel like a wedge issue? No pressure to respond if you feel like it's not easy to talk about.
For a bit of context, where I live there's some controversy of whether or not the federal government needed use certain reserve powers. [1] I personally felt the government's actions were pretty measured, but I understand (at least on a theoretical or emotional level) why other people might not have been comfortable with it. I sometimes wonder if support for Russia's invasion is very polarizing internally. That said, I don't speak Russian or know much about the public consciousness there.
[1] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-federal-gover...
I think I do.
It seems to be the same as the reason for invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Ukraine also started a transformation, slipping away from Russia's influence and opening to West. Russia's rulers (whether that is Putin or whomever) understandably got pissed by this loss of influence "in their backyard" and they decided they have to do something.
It was clear to Russians for a long time now that NATO was fractured on Ukraine and that even the hawkish Western powers won't go into direct war with Russians because of Ukraine. It's not that important to anybody in the West.
Considering the fact West won't fight in Ukraine, and it did not provide any real concessions to Russia's demands, it is not surprising that Russia has taken initiative. It makes perfect sense, for Russians it is the only way to make sure NATO/EU won't happen and also win control and resources in Ukraine at the same time (which may be a substantial reason as well, despite the fact Putin does not talk about it).
Considering the disproportion in military powers, I think now it would be best for Ukrainians to capitulate, admit defeat and avoid unnecessary deaths. Also, the West bears some responsibility for this misery in Ukraine. Even from western point of view, West should have never started this overture process with false promises and predictable bad results. Unless the Russian invasion was actually a desired result in some secret mastermind plan made in the West... which does not seem likely.
Russian economy is in decline since 2014. COVID-19 pandemic has increased its decline even further.
So it seems that the upcoming EU + US economic sanctions will be used by propaganda as the ultimate explanation of the decline. I mean Kremlin actually looks forward to more sanctions in order to have plausible explanation ("we are at war and our enemies made your life worse; we need to stay strong around our leader mr. Putin" shit).
The vast, vast majority of the growth in US and EU economies since 2014 (really, much earlier than that, though) has been in fundamentally non-productive sectors like finance, real estate, entertainment, social media, and hospitality.
This is all well and good in peacetime, but the GDP calculation changes dramatically when you're on a war footing and need to produce actual tangible things. Russia looks much, much, much better economically than GDP suggests in the context of its ability to produce theater materiel, power that materiel, and man that materiel.
It's going to be a fun day for us when our pathetic "service-based economy" workforce of ad spent optimizers, real estate agents, attorneys, starbucks baristas, ReactJS programmers, UI designers, Buffalo Wild Wings servers, twitch streamers, instagram influencers, and "hustlers" of all kinds get drafted to fight hardened alcoholic roughnecks who've spent the last 20 years actually building things, backed up by Chinese rangefinders, optics, and target acquisition systems.
Good luck to us.
Military intervention is the best solution Russia has a large army but its old and would be unable to deal with western military, but there is no real path for that to happen.
No something I welcome, but the calculations you are making don’t match up with reality.
How would you have it? Just let any nuclear armed state invade any country it wants? There has to be a place where the line is drawn.
Russia has agency in this scenario. If they drop nukes first they are starting a nuclear war.
Of course, Putin may have hoped that the Ukrainian public would "see the light" and realize that they are really Russian people (as Putin seems to think they ought to) and align themselves accordingly, but that would have been a pipe dream.
The west doesn’t really hold the cards at the moment.
- If Nato had put a memorandum on Ukraine membership: Russia would have less of a reason to attack but Nato wouldn’t be able to help defend Ukraine in case of an attack
- Nato stays ambivalent about eventual membership: Russia is more likely to attack and, as stated by the Nato general secretary and the US president, Nato won’t help defend Ukraine in case of an attack
I assume you mean "moratorium"?
You claimed that this wasn’t inevitable. From today’s vantage point, it seems pretty clear that this was Putin’s intent all along.
You know of what Ukrainians are even sicker than this conflict? Russian imperialism. Each instance of sabre rattling brings them closer to the West.
Remember how the Russian government was recently talking about how what goes on inside of their borders is only their business? That they may move their troops anywhere they like inside of their borders (the obvious lie by Putin & Co that was obvious at the time)? Yeah, that's the same principle.
And you don't have to imagine, just remember Cuban missile crisis (in response to US deploying missiles in Turkey, Italy)
I've heard this "analogy" brought up several times in the last couple days, but I just don't find it persuasive or similar, or really actually matter.
If Mexico decided to invite the Russian army in for whatever reason, that is their choice as a sovereign nation. I (as an American) would be super worried about that, but I would also think that the US should probably be asking itself why Mexico had chosen to do this instead of allying itself with the US.
And that's really the heart of this for me: despite Ukraine's history with Russia, they seem to feel that joining NATO is better for their security and safety. Russia should take a hard look at themselves and ask why that's the case, and maybe adjust their behavior so they'd be considered a more trustworthy partner.
But of course that would never happen; instead we have a dictator who believes Russia has some natural right to Ukraine's lands, and will take it by force if necessary. If the US were behaving that way toward Mexico, I absolutely wouldn't blame them for looking for outside help. It would be irresponsible for them not to.
When Ukraine was flirting with the idea of a relationship with the EU in 2013-2014 the Crimean invasion happened. It was absolutely predictable even at that time and in fact many EU officials I have spoken to (including high ranking ones) agreed as much since back then. The signs of a regime which doesn't stand any proximity of a threat to their rule was obvious.
> The reason for the conflict is entirely in Putin's head
I have never been in Putin's head, nor met or talked to him. But to my pride I do forget more history every day than most people will learn in their lifetime and can't think of similar example of a superpower happily accepting adversaries at their border.
In recent history look no further than when the US ordered a naval blockade on Cuba after Cuba's request for Russian missiles to be placed on the island to defend in the event of another US invasion attempt. Putin is literally taking a page from that book.
I don't need to be in Putin's head because he's not some brilliant tactician doing something unheard of, he's just playing an old song to a new audience. If it's the first time you hear it you just have to pay more attention to what came before today.
Not to burst your bubble, but the USSR accepted Turkey with nukes on their border, and before them, Japan. China accepts being essentially surrounded by hostile powers, many of whom are part of NATO.
(Of course “Turkiye” becoming a member of Nato in these times would have been a joke considering Erdoğan. But maybe I’m just showing my naivete.)
Georgia, Syria, Libya, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan are all places Russia and Turkey banged heads one way or another. Just like Russia is taunting NATO to bang heads in Ukraine. China, US, India, Pakistan, Israel, Russia, Turkey are other powerful countries constantly putting out a fire and starting another one. The single larger difference being that the sphere of influence of most of those countries expands far less than US' so their conflicts are generally closer to their actual geographic border rather than on the other side of the world. Otherwise they're all fighting to maintain that buffer in all possible ways.
And at a completely different scale, people in rich neighborhoods rarely accept inconvenient buildings or neighbors right next to them as long as they can do something about it. It's not an indictment on either the people or the countries named above. Just the state of things.
Perhaps the only place with nukes and no sabre rattling today is Western Europe. Then again they have the US to do the rattling for them and pay for the service. The picture will be a lot clearer when this too becomes history.
However, the idea that all superpowers inevitably go to war to preserve this state is just wrong. If you consider superpowers starting from antiquity to today, the only state that has achieved this situation (at any point?) is the USA. Every other has had at least one significant land border with an adversary.
(PS: Probably the biggest one is, of course, between the USSR and China, which was a very hot border since the sino-soviet split).
PS: it was nice while it lasted... https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/russia-and-chin...
Well, except for the fact that the US never actually invaded Cuba.
It was a grave mistake for Ukraine to give up the nuclear weapons they inherited from the USSR.
And in 2014 forces which were definitely just pro-Russian militias as they clearly had no Russian insignia invaded Crimea the moment Ukraine started contemplating a relationship with the West/EU.
This kind of rationalization or nit-picking in order to reach the conclusion you had already settled on has no value, just because there are sides doesn't mean you have to blindly take one. Education and critical thinking help.
Don't compare an authoritarian regime sending militias to conquer the territory of a democratic country to a democratic country training and supporting exiles to get rid of their tormentor. Intent matters.
When you do a good job you don't need to explain your intentions. It's a lesson you learn the very first time you do a good job.
Near term impacts of climate change will very likely leads to crop failures in many of the EU's largest producing regions.
When you don't have enough food to feed your people, politics and economic sanctions become extremely flexible.
When resources run low controlling food and oil will be a very big deal.
Russian and Ukraine combined account for 29% of global wheat exports, much of that to the EU.
Near term climate change will most certainly lead to massive crop failures, particularly in currently bountiful parts of the EU.
Countries like the UK (I know not EU) already cannot feed their people without imports, something like 50% of the UKs food supply is imported.
It is nearly certain that within a few decades, perhaps even sooner, we will be at a point where there is not enough food. We've already see notable crop failures in the EU.
Most of us have grown up in a time of plenty, but that time is running short.
All of this is fairly well established, so is my "delusion" in that Putin is aware of this and acting on it?
After some conversion through various bad units of measure (bushels->pounds->calories), and assuming ~2250 calories a day average), it looks to me like current US corn production could feed somewhere around 1.6 billion people their entire yearly caloric needs, if it was actually directed entirely at feeding people as efficiently as possible.
And that is rather obviously not the only crop or source of food originating in the US.
Math sources:
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2022/01-12-2022.php - corn output.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/in-defense-of-... - bushel/pound/calorie conversion
------
In short, I don't think it's very realistic to think that Europe is going to face a literal inability to get enough food even if the entirety of Ukraine never grew another plant again.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/17/infographic-russia-...
France exports 15,228,664 tonnes of wheat, not far behind the Ukraine with 17,314,278.
Other significant wheat producers in the EU include Germany, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland and Lithuania.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wheat_exp...
What climate change would let crops fail in all corners of the EU, but not Ukraine and Russia?
Links to actual expert analyses, on the other hand, would be much appreciated.
The world's police has abdicated a while ago. This is the kind of thing that happens in the vacuum left behind.
"Asked twice during CNN's town hall whether the US would protect Taiwan if China attacked, Biden said it would." [1]
Contrast that to the stance on Ukraine:
"We have no intention of fighting Russia."[2]
From other statements, it seems clear the administration thinks Taiwan is a critical national interest while Ukraine is not.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/21/politics/taiwan-china-biden-t...
[2] https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/23/biden-troops-russia...
This is true. And it is the main driver behind the United States' renewed interest in domestic fab capability:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/7178
Taiwan isn't explicitly mentioned but it plays a large role in the reasoning behind this.
Semi is the most globalised industry spanning 28 countries, with USA, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, SK, Japan, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands being able to singlehandedly stop the whole of it.
It's a naive thinking "once TSMC will complete Arizona megafab, we can abandon Taiwan." There, are as I said, hundreds of critical single supplier globally pieces of equipment, services, and materials that most of the world had zero idea about. How about nanoneedle probes capable of testing M0 the entire industry depends on, for which there is 1 small company for the entire world.
The DoD has identified the loss of manufacturing capability as a national security risk. Maybe lower labor costs were the impetus of off-shoring manufacturing, but nearly 40 years since globalization took hold there's also a lot of manufacturing that has to go overseas simply because America is no longer able or willing to do it. Could the US bring back that capability? As you said, even if there was the will it wouldn't happen overnight.
US semiconductor equipment from LAM, and Applied Materials are more than half imported parts. US semi industry never used OSATs, until it had to ship their chips to Asia for that, and thus missed out on most of new packaging, and test tech which evolved outside of the US. Similarly for almost everything else.
Replacing Asian material suppliers for the US will be as hard as for China to develop a domestic photolithography stepper.
Ok, then we'll stop talking.
"We will betray our allies, and they will leave us alone" is a form of defeatism, and entertaining others into this way of thinking is not what a citizen of NATO country should do, let alone a public figure.
For their pro-Putler colleagues, one of those phrases is "Ukrainian coup of 2014".
This was already the case though this does make it clear to me that Taiwan will likely fall in short order.
There have been unsubstantiated rumors for years that the Taiwanese military has outfitted TSMC fabs with explosives that can be rigged to go off in the event of a mainland invasion in order to deny China access to TSMC capabilities. Even physical destruction may be unnecessary. Due to the complexity of the semiconductor supply chain, many say that an embargo of materials and the removal of experts are enough to paralyze the fabs for many years.
Never mind various economic measures from all parts of the West. The developed world is already doing things about China's Taiwan ambitions, and have motivations far stronger than altruism to continue doing so. Ukraine by contrast is not as well integrated as Taiwan, and it's their desire to be integrated that set Putin off in the first place. If said integration meant nothing, Putin wouldn't be invading.
> Taiwan has semiconductors western industry depends on.
For once it isn't about oil.
> And the primary reason for AUKUS and giving the Aussies nuclear sub tech is precisely so their subs will have the range to help counter China.
I'm sure the Chinese are most impressed. But Australia too will stand by when the Chinese invade Taiwan.
> China just "sanctioned" (largely performative) Lockheed and Boeing over a $100 million arms sale to Taiwan.
You need to separate out the economic incentives from the political ones there to get a clearer picture of what is happening.
> Never mind various economic measures from all parts of the West. The developed world is already doing things about China's Taiwan ambitions, and have motivations far stronger than altruism to continue doing so.
China doesn't care about any of that: they care about the United States and them alone because that is the only country that can credibly put up enough force projected into that region to put a stop to it if they decide to move.
> Ukraine by contrast is not as well integrated as Taiwan, and it's their desire to be integrated that set Putin off in the first place.
You could Swap Ukraine and Taiwan and substitute Xi and you have a winner at some point in the future, provided Taiwan would express a desire to join NATO.
> If said integration meant nothing, Putin wouldn't be invading.
Put would invade regardless, and this is the mistake that everybody is making: the NATO approach is a figleaf, that only happened after things had already started to slide inside Ukraine. But I'm pretty sure that only a very small fraction of HN is aware of that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yanukovych
Was placed to serve as a Russian puppet to keep Ukraine out of the influence of the West, which the country overwhelmingly wanted. After being tossed out (he's since moved to Russia) the whole separatism affair started fueled by Russia. Ukraine had every right to do so, and the occupation and subsequent invasion are proof positive that Ukraine was right about Russia's intentions, not the other way around.
You will find a lively corresponding sentiment in lots of other former USSR states.
Regardless, when I say "western integration" I don't mean hard NATO membership. Taiwan is a greater economic player than Ukraine, and a very defensible island, with a very different set of political entanglements. The situations may look similar in the abstract, but it's comparing oranges to lemons.
I'm also not sure why you think the Aussies would stand by. They're already in their own economic war with China and by joining AUKUS have made their position abundantly clear. New Zealand would probably stand by, but honestly they don't matter that much militarily.
China is making enemy after enemy on the assumption that their enemies are fundamentally weak/corrupt and can be rolled over, while uniting under an ethno-nationalist/cult of personality leadership. They aren't the first in history to make that mistake. And if they continue down that road it ends in bloody defeat.
Could some trouble have been avoided if Yanukovych had left office via election rather than via coup? How many Ukrainians really considered his negotiation tactics with EU so unbecoming that he should have been summarily removed via "extralegal" means?
Either way, the reason it can't have a simple answer is that it's an invalid question, since it presupposes something which isn't true. (As further explained in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30539775 .)
And IMO it's a bit suspicious that so many of the "simple questions" on this subject just happen to be couched in Putlin propaganda terms.
I'm not really sure what you are trying to argue here, this is pretty much settled history.
You mean 'under the Russian boot'. They already know what that is like, hence their resistance to a repeat performance.
The rest of the alternative reality stuff I'll not respond to, feel free to take that any way you want.
One guess how I'm inclined to take that...
The vast majority of Ukrainians are not responsible for their misfortunes over the last decade. Certainly they have my sympathy. Violent coups usually harm the societies in which they occur, so the tiny minority of Ukrainians who took part in that coup have harmed their nation and their fellow Ukrainians. That harm has taken the form of a Russian invasion, but if it had happened somewhere else at some other time (e.g. Iran, in 1953) the harm would have come anyway.
Eventually, if we survive long enough, humans will learn to organize (and re-organize!) ourselves without large-scale violence. Some had imagined that democracy might be a part of that, but few today seem to agree.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHH10jIRJmQ
Ukrainians (and Georgians, and elderly Hungarians) are already well aware...
USA has gone on record saying it will fall on the sword for Taiwan. [0]
USA never said any such thing for Ukraine. The closest commitment is Biden saying "we will defend every inch of NATO territory." [1]
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59005300
[1] https://news.yahoo.com/biden-warns-russia-us-defend-21054732...
The US made their commitments when their opponents were at their nadir neglecting that they'd be challenged when the opponents were at their strongest. Walking back those commitments to what the US is willing and able to defend will continue to be the challenge of the 21st century. There needs to be a strategic re-evaluation of what the US should defend and what they can defend.
IMHO, ultimately the either should not or can not defend Eastern Europe bordering Russia, The Caucasus, Saudi Arabia, and Taiwan. How to wiggle out of those commitments without giving Russia, China, & Iran ideas is the tough part.
The possible what-if scenarios arising from unchecked expansion of superpowers is disturbing.
I'll believe that when I see it, under Biden, maybe. But that may also just be posturing and probably won't last longer than the moment that the USA can become independent of Taiwanese manufacturing capabilities at which point it would actually be in the US' interest if Taiwan would no longer be able to produce.
Because Joe Alzheimer is the weakest dictator in the US history.
With words.
EU has also supported Ukraine with words recently.
I've seen ads on the telly making an emotional statement that "Ukraine is Europe".
Europe as a continent does not exist: it is a small corner of Asia. Eurocentricism needs to stop. This us-vs-them game needs to stop.
This invasion is terrible for normal people, Ukrainian (bombs), Russian (sanctions) and everyone else (instability, high prices). It could have been prevented if the "west"/NATO was not "pulling on" (arming) Ukraine. The NATO already have plenty places to make bases on Russian border.
See what happened to Cuba. The US/NATO also do not like bases on their border. They should have understood Russia also does not like that.
But then I believe NATO is more into the business of war then the business of peace.
According to Wikipedia, many NATO members are either Arms or non-lethal aid suppliers.
""" Arms suppliers: Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States
Non-lethal military aid: Germany, Italy, Slovakia, Sweden, European Union, Belarusian opposition """[1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukrai...
The US alone provided $2.5 Billion of aid [2]. That doesn't include Biden's $200 Million military aid package in 2022 [2].
[1] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/can-jaw-jaw-in-the-west-r...
[2] https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2022/01/25/200m-in-jave...
"I think also that we need to realize that Ukraine is a highly valued partner. We support them with military support, with political support, with the cyber defences, with equipment. Different Allies provide different types of support. But when it comes to NATO Allies, we provide absolute security guarantees. Meaning that we make it absolutely clear that an attack on one Ally will trigger a response from the whole Alliance. One-for-all. All-for-one."
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_192343.htm