(Also Russia is also a very risky business environment, so hedging...)
(Also^2 Yandex is not under sanctions, the current outage doesn't seem to be about sanctions according to the news)
While this didn't work out for the Russian relationship, it wasn't a totally stupid plan.
The idea that interdependence leads to less wars is very old one. I was reading The Guns of August which tells about beginning of first World War, it refers to book released in 1910 called "the Great Illusion" [1]. I have not read it, but the book became best seller just before first World War, I'll quote from Wikipedia here:
> In The Great Illusion, Angell's primary thesis was, in the words of historian James Joll, that "the economic cost of war was so great that no one could possibly hope to gain by starting a war the consequences of which would be so disastrous." For that reason, a general European war was very unlikely to start, and if it did, it would not last long...
> According to Angell, the economic interdependence between industrial countries would be "the real guarantor of the good behavior of one state to another"...
Economics matter, but if the leadership isn't made of business caring people, or is isolated like it now looks like, then interdependence isn't happening regardless of business ties between companies.
It doesn't work if the other party is just one person (or few people) in power for over twenty years, and all open society institutions in that other country have been systematically suppressed.
What's a chance that the same person is capable and willing to represent all possible economic and society interests?
> The Great Illusion
Publication date: 1909; 1933. Interesting. The idea stood the test of time.
Yet, I voted (abroad) in the last elections just fine? You do have to register early nowadays, whereas it used to be trivial to cast a vote previously, but I'm genuinely unsure what you base a claim such as "we practically lost our right to vote" on. In addition, several democratic countries disallow voting for expatriates (e.g. Ireland de jure / Israel de facto).
> This allowed Orban to get authoritian power that is now undefeatable.
At no point during the last few decades have elections been swayed by votes cast outside of Hungary.
That’s fine, and I agree it’s an issue, but maybe tone it down a bit for next time. I’m used to this tone from Hungarians both online and in real life, but I’d rather not allow such false impressions to seep into the wider discourse.
There’s enough “Poles and Hungarians bad” narratives going around without us having to add fuel to the fire.
I mean, you did vote in Orbán, a demonstrably terrible human being, for many years running. It’s hardly a better look for the citizens of Hungary if that wasn’t due to disenfranchisement.
My prediction is that the ,,voted'' PM of Hungary will be the same in 4 years. If you are right, it will probably change.
> If you are right, it will probably change.
I literally never made that argument.
Those preceded the EU, but were already intended to end up in tighter and tighter integration.
Relationships go both ways, and so far it looks like neither side has a reason to sever them quickly, despite the war (Russia wants the money, democratic governments want to be elected next time). Severing is very gradual allowing for gradual adjustment on both sides. No huge shock. No huge deterrent.
And I don't get the purpose of the interdependency in case of direct attack either, with the attacker being the supplier. Attacking country cutting you off from significant portion of fossil fuels before the attack, will not make your defense any easier.
> Besides NATO
NATO is not secretly running Europe. It is alliance European countries openly begged, pressured and asked to get in.
> US dont go into outrage threatening local admins
You should read a bit about how ambassador Richard Grenell behaved himself in Germany. The day after he arrived, he demanded that all German companies doing business in Iran wind down their operations. And the thing is, everyone knew that that demand was backed up by real power, because the US can and does go after European companies that do business in Iran. Grenell seemed to think he was some sort of proconsul, rather than an ambassador to a friendly nation.
Russia's influence consists mainly of its gas and oil deliveries, and the fact that various European companies have invested in Russia. It has comparatively little soft power. Outside of Hungary, Serbia and a few other small European countries, the media, politics and public opinion are fairly strongly anti-Russian.
Just to give you a flavor of how much soft power the US has, the largest private news media empire in Germany, the Axel Springer group (they own the largest tabloid and one of the largest newspapers), was literally funded by the CIA during the Cold War, and still officially lists support for the United States as one of its guiding editorial principles. Meanwhile, Russia's attempts to build up pro-Russian media have gone nowhere. You can't even access RT in a lot of Europe: its YouTube channel is blocked, and DNS servers don't even return results when you query RT.
"You dont understand you are just believing the MSM NATO globalist propaganda; Putin isnt a mad man and there there is no way he will invade the Ukraine, the troops are just doing exercises on the border."
When we talk about people who actively tried to sway public opinion or actively tried to influence politics, the expectations are different.
Often utterly false. Long history of involvement in Middle East and Indochina affairs for example looks like those figureheads have cotton candy in for a brain.
On the whole the EU project, and the approach of tight economic ties across the continent has been a huge success.
Until Ukraine there hasn’t been a war in Europe for 75 years. Before the EU and the drive to economic integration, Europe had been in a state of almost perpetual war between the different states. Even today the economic integration has made war between most European states unthinkable. Nobody is worried about the U.K. declaring war on France or vice-versa, something that almost habitual before the 21st century.
Russia is the anomaly here, the one case where economic integration didn’t prevent war. But just because the approach isn’t 100% effective, doesn’t mean it’s worthless.
You forgot the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s.
Yeah, except for the wars in:
- Cyprus
- Yugoslavia
- Georgia
- Moldova
"Before we had war, but now we don't, must be EU"
And your own evidence: "Nobody is worried about the U.K. declaring war on France"
.... contradicts your point - the UK was not part of the EEC/EU for most of it's existence, so did the EU/EEC 'stop wars'?
Seems like 'UK and France' learned to get along without 'deep economic integration'.
And Switzerland? They've never been to war - and they have the least amount of 'economic integration.
Neither Finland.
South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Canada, US, Mexico have not fought wars against each other either.
"But just because the approach isn’t 100% effective, doesn’t mean it’s worthless."
More likely the 'approach' is not hugely relevant.
Not for lack of trying. The U.K. very much wanted to be part of the EU/EEC almost from inception. Going to war with a union you want join isn’t generally seen as a good way prove the advantages of your joining the union.
Additionally the U.K. and France did build extremely close economic ties during and after WW2. Much easier to trade with your neighbour than random countries on the other side of the planet.
Switzerland and Finland are both part the European Economic Area, the treaty the provides the underpinnings of free trade in Europe. All joined the EEA because it was clear that building wealth and prosperity through economic integration was a smarter approach than trying to invade your neighbours.
> South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Canada, US, Mexico have not fought wars against each other either.
Many of these counties are separated by significant physical distance, making war unlikely and difficult, or simply don’t have resources worth stealing via war. What to be gained by invading Singapore or Japan? They have no natural resources worth talking about, and country under force foreign rule tends to be an unproductive one.
Canada and US almost went to war several times before WW2. Primary preventers of those wars were either colonial rulers not wanting to get into a shooting war with another colonial country, or the simple fact that both countries had plenty of natural resources already, so bother with the expense and difficulty of invading a neighbour for resources you can dig up in your own back yard?
At the end of the day, there’s only a handful of reasons that make warfare worthwhile. Primarily the reason is access to naturals resources you don’t have within your own territory. But why bother invading if you can just trade instead? Much cheaper and easier, hence economic integration becomes an obvious path forward. Once you’re integrated, why would risk easy cheap access to resources by invading? You pour huge amounts of money, time and people in to a war, and gain what? Slightly cheaper access to resources, but if you consider the cost of war, it’s obvious that just trading for resources is cheaper, faster and easier.
Germany also has a huge population, especially by European standards, even if somewhat less huge than Russia’s. Both Germany and Russia are outliers, being in some ways far from the European average. What makes Russia much more distinctive, is in how many different ways it is an outlier - arguably in a fair few more ways than contemporary Germany is, which makes it a much bigger outlier overall.
> They have nuclear weapons for sure, but I wouldn’t like to speculate about their maintenance and availability.
For a decent-sized nation state, nuclear weapons aren’t actually that hard to manufacture and maintain and deliver, especially if they aim at basic functionality and aren’t trying to be on the cutting edge. The biggest obstacles for most such countries are (1) the rest of the world will try to stop them through sanctions, clandestine operations, even military action; (2) if you don’t have domestic uranium deposits, it is very hard to buy uranium for military use, all major sellers will insist you promise to use it for civilian purposes only and submit to regular inspections to prove that. As an accepted nuclear weapons state, Russia doesn’t have to worry about (1); Russia also has substantial uranium reserves and is one of the world’s leading uranium exporters, so it doesn’t have to worry about (2) either. So I think Russia’s nuclear arsenal is likely to be reliable and usable.
> Russia claims to have a huge stockpile, but their PIB is at the level of Spain (that has like 40% of russia's population).
I was confused by this–what is PIB? Then I realised you are probably a French-speaker, and PIB means produit intérieur brut, which is the French equivalent to what we call in English, GDP.
They can easily fix that by annexing former SSSR territories (about 230 million)
We’ve definitively put the final nail in the coffin on this one. Russia is a nuclear power. But it’s no longer a great power, let alone a superpower.
Maybe notions of owning all of Europe ceased with Napoleon, but France trying to extend its borders Eastwards was happening right until the EU took shape.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhine_crisis
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Prussian_War
3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revanchism
Same could be said for Germany and West expansions. Thankfully a thing of the past right now.
1) Massive Natural Resources (carbon fuels) which mean they don't have to do anything productive and can make huge money.
2) Totalitarian with Kleptocracy. The population accepts it over anything else, Putin keeps all competitors at bay. This means a single cabal can make big decisions.
3) Cultural Chauvinism. 30% are 'totally cool' with wiping out their neighbours in the vein of some cooked up rubbish. Even when they know it's 'cooked up'. I think they are definitely product I don't think they see themselves as 'ubermench' I think it's a kind of 'superiority from an inferiority' complex. They also lack empathy compared to most other places, not on an individual level, but on a cultural level. There are no leaders who speak of hope, togetherness, prosperity - those are viewed as 'weak'. (Paradoxically their 'strong' people are just incompetent killers).
So with Money, Control, and Cultural Chauvinism - you have potentiality for big things. Like war.
'Security Council' is not that important.
Nukes are actually not important - but they do provide an 'umbrella' of cover, in that, NATO would already be in Ukraine otherwise. So they can be decisive.
Their 'former empire' is not relevant other than in the jingoistic psyche of Putin and some of the plebes.
A very common thing for humans to have. US, UK, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Japan, China – to list just a few countries which have a lengthy history of it, there are many more–and some will question whether some of the countries I have listed have really moved beyond it. (I'll even say my own country, Australia, has a decent amount of it – even if the form it takes looks rather different from that of some other countries.)
> 'Security Council' is not that important.
> Nukes are actually not important
> Their 'former empire' is not relevant
I think all these things tie into national attitudes and culture. Many Russians remember when their country was one of the most powerful countries in the world (at the height of the Cold War, arguably second only to the United States, and the Soviets even managed to beat the Americans at some things); even for those too young to remember it, it was a large chunk of the life of their parents/grandparents. The degree to which their country has fallen is rather obvious to all, and things like the permanent UN Security Council membership and the nuclear arsenal serve as enduring reminders of that past "glory". Many Russians have no interest in going back to the "glory" days, but a substantial chunk of the population do, and there are many more who may be susceptible to propaganda promoting the idea – and that makes them open to supporting, or at least not overtly opposing, government policies aimed at doing that. By contrast, there are many other countries who either have never had that kind of history, or else for which the days of "imperial glory" are much more distant, well beyond the memory of the living–and citizens of those other countries are far less likely to acquiesce in imperial designs, especially when those designs start to impose costs on everyday life.
The number of people who'd be easily willing to just murder a bunch of people for an invented reason is much greater than elsewhere.
Americans can get 'nationalist' but they are absolutely not like that, beyond a smaller group, Americans are by default positive and gregarious.
I believe Russia's dark past, their permanent oppression, total lack of hope for something to change makes them amenable to this. Basically, institutionalized cynicism.
I believe that even Putin himself, former counter espionage is the most cynical it gets, like Machiavellian without recognizing that 'hope and prosperity' are actually legitimate things. He sees everything as a cynical game of power. The Americans 'can't possibly be acting in good faith' because 'there is no such thing as good faith' - but even worse - not even knowing what 'good faith' is because he's never been exposed to it. 'People who smile are fools, unserious, they can't be competent!' etc. not able to just recognize a basic common joy.
The contrast between attitudes and motivations by Ukrainians these days is just unbelievable, which is interesting because despite historical similarities, it's almost as if 'modern Ukrainian identity' is formed out of the hope that arises when coming out of that rubble. Even regular Ukrainians, farmers seem to be on a different wavelength.
That signals that they too miss a pretty basic level of empathy.
The number of countries ravaged/destroyed by americans and their decisions is countless.
"number of countries ravaged/destroyed by americans and their decisions is countless. " - this is rubbish. The argument could be made for Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, but even then, those are uneven arguments and motivations were righteous if flawed. In Afghanistan for example, did not actually spend much time at all bombing Afghanistan infrastructure proper, there are no 'cities levelled' by Americans and there are layers of bureaucracy to try to avoid civilian damage if necessary, they have operating procedures for it, there is even some transparency though it's never perfect. They didn't consistently destroy strategic facilities like 'Oil Refineries' or 'Factories, they spent 10's of Billions investing in Afghanistan, trying to build infrastructure, schools, trying desperately to get little girls to be able to attend schools, trying desperately for some semblance of basic civility. The indifference, lack of basic civil foundation, mass corruption (Afghan leaders funnelling billions into Dubai etc.) made it an impossible task even over 20 years, though plausible with a few more decades. Despite that, there's overwhelming goodwill otherwise.
That's just regular old propaganda [0], even many of Russians in Ukraine think they are there for a positive reason, like actually denazifying Ukraine.
Just like plenty of Americans had the positive reason of debaathifying Iraq for serving there.
But even American soldiers are not always convinced of that "positive impetus" [1], particularly after witnessing the realities on the ground for long enough.
what happened to: syria libya egypt lebanon yemen venezuela nicaragua
the list goes on and on..
i dont think anyone would argue that arming literal islamist extremists in syria is righteous.
the number of american interventions is too many to count, and the fact that YOU believe they were righteous proves yet again that you lack empathy. what good does that do to all the victims? intervention after intervention, the situation just gets worse and worse. no one ever get held accountable, american citizens dont know any better and get to be gregarious and positive
Sure, of course: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Powell#/media/File:Colin...
The 2003 invasion of Iraq? Quite popular in the US at first (opinion polls at the time of the invasion showed over 70% support); people who opposed it were frequently belittled, shunned, harassed, boycotted (remember the controversy over the Dixie Chicks?). The reasons for the war were essentially invented – weapons of mass destruction which could never be found, attempts to link the Iraqi government to the 9/11 terrorist attacks despite the fact that there was no evidence the Iraqi government had any involvement. Many thousands died in the initial invasion, and hundreds of thousands in the ensuing war which the invasion began – all due to a war based on lies. Sure, Saddam Hussein was an evil man, but the world is full of evil men who do evil things – many of which the US is happy to call its friends (such as the Saudi regime) – but was removing that man from power worth all the ensuing death and destruction and chaos, especially when so many other equally evil regimes were left in place? Most of the worst things he'd done (such as genocidal massacres of ethnic minorities) were in the past, and more limited international interventions (such as the no-fly zones) appeared to be succeeding at preventing further such atrocities.
I'm not saying what Putin is doing to Ukraine is the same thing as what the US did to Iraq – Volodymyr Zelenskyy is no Saddam Hussein, and certainly not the Adolf Hitler which Russian propaganda presents him as being – only that Russians are not quite as different from Americans (among others) as you are suggesting they are.
That there were antagonisms between pro/against doesn't mean Americans were not empathetic one way or another, and the 'pro war' were as maligned by other side just as well i.e. 'war monger' etc..
While the popular justification for war was exaggerated, Iraq did have WMD, but more importantly, the geostrategic consideration for removing Saddam just isn't something that can be used in a populist context. You can't say "We failed to complete the mission in 1993, Saddam is operating a rogue regime" etc..
Remember that there was a 'no fly zone' over Iraq for a decade to keep the Iraqi Air Force down - this is arguably an untenable position.
If the 'post invasion' process were to have been better prepared for and planned and less direct political failure etc. I suggest people would look at it as a 'success'. My point being - the 'motives' are very tied to 'execution' in terms of our understanding of whether or not it was a good thing.
Most poignantly - the US wasn't trying to create a vassal, just the opposite. None of the Iraqi Oil contracts even when to American firms, during the occupational period US had considerable influence but would actually rather not. The US spent gazillions of dollars trying to 'get some kind of civil framework' going, which they accomplished, just barely so.
In hindsight it was a hugely bad decision, but it were to have been less chaotic than arguably it might not have been a bad decision.
Putin's decision to invade Ukraine is purely Imperialist, his objective is to 'erase' Ukraine.
If Ukraine had capitulated, sure, there would be less bloodshed, but you'd also see a nation evaporate, and, another 10's of millions of people living in another Russian Vassal s*thole.
Hundreds of thousands of dead and god knows how many maimed, starved, displaced would not give a flying fuck about what the US was trying to do. Go there and try to oopsy in the face of the victims and see what happens.
> Americans can get 'nationalist' but they are absolutely not like that, beyond a smaller group, Americans are by default positive and gregarious.
Americans killed millions, and displaced tens of millions [0] in a "crusade on terror" the consequences of which lasting to this day, for a whole bunch of invented reasons [1] [2] [3].
And that was after the largest protest movement, in human history, literally begged them not to do it [4].
Which is quite a stark contrast to the Russia Ukraine situation; That has been a situation for by now nearly a decade, with Russia being very vocal about its own interests and where it draws the line in term of NATO expansion.
All of that was ignored, for years, as Russia's interests were not deemed important, or even worth considering from a Western, and particularly US perspective, that only considered one thing; Steady NATO expansion, steady encroachment on Russia [5].
After literally decades of this [6] the bear is now in the corner, and it's very predictably leashing out, yet most of the West still keeps acting like the bear is irrational for acting like that. Particularly as the West rather wants to peddle the narrative of the expansionist bear who is soon to roll into Berlin, to justify all that NATO expansion..
[0] https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/20...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein_and_al-Qaeda_li...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein%27s_alleged_shr...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_anti-war_prot...
[5] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-jul-07-me-10464...
[6] https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/13/international/bush-pulls-...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lQ-E-7b-Vw
The EU put stipulations on Ukraine, that they could only have free trade status with the EU or Russia but not both. This pulled UA westward at the detriment of Russia.
Ukraine had a lower performing, cheaper economy than Russia, free trade status with the EU means that it could have setup factories for rich EU companies.
Huge untapped oil and gas deposits were discovered in Ukraine as well, putting Russia's energy dominance over Europe into doubt. With all of their financial eggs in the oil basket and all of that corruption to feed ... We now see the result.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93European_Union...
? They said the same thing to the UK, and they say the same thing to every country. Do you understand what trade harmonization means ? You can't be part of multiple trade harmonization zones.
They didn't because the UK didn't even have the same problem due to the UK already having been a EU member for a long time, as such it was already tooled for EU market demands.
While the Ukrainian economy was very much tooled towards former Soviet markets like Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, those made up 60% of Ukraine's exports in 2013 [0].
Obviously a lot of that fell apart after 2014, instead came IMF bailouts aka loans [1], which have been keeping the Ukrainian economy alive since then, now substituted with additional credits for the weapons some countries are supplying Ukraine.
> Do you understand what trade harmonization means ? You can't be part of multiple trade harmonization zones.
So you do understand the actual issue? Then why act like it ain't an issue and it's just "Russian propaganda like in the UK!"?
[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-russia-ukraine-factbox...
This is Russian propaganda - either from someone who doesn't understand the situation (i.e. 'Useful Idiocy' as Stalin himself coined the term) - or - arguing in bad faith.
It's ironically a very good example of the cynical, authoritarian, toxic 'bad faith' acting by the Russian government, and people.
Foreign Minster Lavarov - literally just yesterday, was lambasting Israel for 'supporting the Nazi regime in Ukraine'.
The word 'repulsive' isn't strong enough.
'NATO expansion' is - much like the public story of 'WMDs in Iraq' - a canard.
It's as stupid as the lie about 'denazification' which Putin is using to justify a genocide.
Russia has no real threat from NATO - there is 0% chance of NATO aggression towards Russia, and they know it.
Concerns about 'not listening to Russian concerns for 7 years' is another lie - as though Russia had a material position to begin with.
Russia created the problems in Ukraine, quite on purpose.
In 2004 they poisoned Ukrainian Yushchenko, later, the GRU/FIS/FSB were all over, controlling and corrupting their stooge Yanukovich - who publicly declared he was going to focus on Europe, but after consolidating power, he indicated that Ukraine was going to 'Go with Russia'.
A revolution ensued - and Putin invaded Crimea and invaded (yes, invaded) the Donbas where his forces 'not in uniform' were used to start a conflict between Ukrainians.
Even the leaders of the Ukrainian ultra nationalists were on Putin's payroll - he was cynically playing both sides.
If you want to understand Putin's genocidal motivations in Ukraine, read his own words [1]
You can read Michael McFaul's (former Ambassador to Russia) great articulation of the situation [2]
2)
Saddam Hussein was a totalitarian mass murderer who invaded Kuwait (Iran before that), gassed his own citizens.
Saddam would call out members of Congress, ask them to confess to their failures ... and then have them executed on the spot.
Saddam is responsible for situation he created for himself, American intentions and methods were overall in good faith, though obviously poorly applied.
The 'WMD story' was an exaggeration of reality for reasons of populism, but it was not even false - WMD's were a problem for this regime, as was his ongoing antagonism.
[1] http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181
[2] https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/what-putin-fears...
I actually think that this is wrong. And that is the key to understand Russia’s behavior.
Russia seems to have (legitimate I would say, given the past) fears that it will be attacked eventually like it happened in the past and needs to be - as a result of that - heavily defended.
It's true that USA has done some terrible things in the past. And it's too bad the perpetrators never got punished. But it doesn't mean we should tolerate this behaviour elsewhere.
Russia is after all a rational actor on the world stage, and they must have thought the benefits are stronger than the cons.
It is 'rational' in Russian to invade a former colony, because they should be dominated by Russia. 75% of the elite are good with that, 50% of the population and the rest will be mostly indifferent in the end.
Russia obviously does not want NATO expansion but they are not afraid of it, and NATO 'on their borders' is not an existential concern.
Much like Putin set the 'red lines' for intervention and is destroying a nation saying 'others cannot be involved but we can' - his propaganda has you in the same 'mental bubble' - thinking about 'NATO' while he does the unthinkable.
Russia also has no interest in telling the truth - they lie, lie, lie. Their diplomacy is entire a function of leverage.
Your taking the intellectual posture of an abused person, listening to the excuses of 'why he had to abuse you' etc..
Again - if you want to understand, just read Putin's own words [1].
He does not view Ukraine as a 'place'. He views Ukraine as basically part of 'greater russia' and that 'Ukraine' is not real.
Also, read McFaul's thesis about NATO and Russia.
[1] http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181
[2] https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/what-putin-fears...
That makes no sense at all [0], it wasn't Russian politicians that went to Euromaidan to rile the people there up how more negotiations would be "Not enough" [1], that were pretty much Western, and particularly US politicians and "their people" in Ukraine, like Arseniy Yatsenyuk [2].
Who Victoria Nuland called "our man in Ukraine" when discussing how to grandfather in his new Ukrainian government at the UN [3]
Even Germany threw in their bid for new PM of Ukraine, with a German national [4], thus Klitschko didn't even qualify for that position without an Ukrainian citizenship.
I guess they could have done it like with Natalie Jaresko, an American banker who ended up becoming the new Ukrainian minister of finance, got her Ukrainian citizenship the same day she was sworn in as minister [5].
This whole situation also lead to the Russian military having massive supply issues, as East Ukraine used to be rather integral manufacturing hub for Russian military arms [6]. Why would Russia want to "manufacture" losing all of that?
> It's true that USA has done some terrible things in the past. And it's too bad the perpetrators never got punished. But it doesn't mean we should tolerate this behaviour elsewhere.
The US still is doing these things, US troops still illegally occupy territories in places like Cuba and Syria. US drones and Special forces still kill people in at least half a dozen countries [7], with the help of countries that allegedly condone wars of aggression [8], Gitmo is still open and nobody knows how many more like it secretly exist.
In that context I find it fascinating how US war crimes are always declared like this thing from a far flung past that simply doesn't matter anymore, to then turn around and demand how the whole world should punish Russia for war crimes like its the next Nazi Germany.
Which I totally could get behind, if this was the universal reaction to such acts of aggression, but it absolutely is not. That's only the reaction when established "rogue nations" aka the alleged "bad guys" engage in such aggression, thus it can be exploited to support US foreign policy narratives.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/john-mccain-meets-oleh-tyahn...
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20140302111543/http://openukrain...
[3] https://youtu.be/WV9J6sxCs5k
[4] https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/ausland/id_66915060/ukra...
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Jaresko#Citizenship
[6] https://web.archive.org/web/20150329000809/http://www.soufan...
[7] https://theintercept.com/2017/01/30/obama-killed-a-16-year-o...
[8] https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/08/germany-could-have-deli...
US war crimes are a thing, sure. But Russia just demonstrated a whole another level, as proven by genocide in Bucha, Mariupol and many others, as well as mass kidnappings and relocations to Siberia. US invaded countries, while Russia is literal Nazis.
As for why Russia was manufacturing the conflict: it’s obvious, it’s an attempt to grab land. They succeeded with Crimea.
I once heard this stressed very strongly, from a historical, cultural, and political perspective.
Russia is not European.
If one considers the mindset which allowed this war to happen, and the politics, the fascism, this seems quite true.
The EU doesn't have the monopoly on being European or European values.
Which means the majority of Europe/Asia distinctions are drawn around economic, cultural and particularly political borders, none of which are natural but to a degree rather arbitrarily defined by humans depending on their particular agenda.
In that context "othering", up to a scale of denying whole nation states their geographical location and cultural influences, has never lead to better and more peaceful relations, quite the opposite.
It seems like this was a common idea globally in the past sixty years but I don't think I've actually seen it work out anywhere.
Where Yandex mis-calculated is that Russia (the country) is not a hegemonic power like the US is (militarily, economically and culturally) and as such it doesn't have the same influencing power.
Yes, that's exactly what I meant when talking about US's hegemonic power.
> Whereas western EU countries have more leverage over Russian companies without fearing much retaliation.
Some parts of the Russian political elites really believed (maybe they still do) that Europe's industrial heartland (or what's left of it, anyways) depended on cheap Russian energy. That was of course correct, Germany's industry greatly depends on access to cheap Russian energy. Where the Russians mis-calculated here was in thinking that the Europeans (meaning mostly the Germans) would relinquish their industrial advantage at the behest of the US (and partly the UK, even though is debatable how much of a geo-strategic role the UK still plays on the continent). As the German chancellor said a couple of days ago the upcoming total embargo on Russian energy will have economic consequences (there were talks of a 3-5% hit on the economy), imo this is a very risky play in the middle- to long-term, you don't want a united Germany hit by des-industrialisation in the middle of Europe.
Later edit: This recent editorial from FT's Martin Wolf is pure propaganda, it puts the onus 100% on the Germans and asks them to economically suck it up for the benefit of Europe and of "democracy" (apparently whenever the US gets involved in a war is always for protecting "democracy").
> A brutal conflict has come to Europe of a kind not seen since the second world war, and even where some of its worst atrocities occurred. For Germany in particular, it is a moment of challenge and opportunity. The challenge is to defend Europe’s liberal civilisation. The opportunity is for historic redemption. Russia must not prevail. This is what matters most. There will indeed be pain. But it must be borne for a far greater cause.
Again, it is my belief that this won't hold in the middle- to long-term, the current US leaders are playing with fire, an united Germany strategically allied with Russia in 10-15 years' time would be the end of many things on this continent, first of all of "democracy".
Why doesn't that make sense? The US did start several wars (plus a wrongfully deposed government or two) in the Persian Gulf for exactly that reason (that was until their shale gas revolution took off in the late '00s). Plus, a des-industrialised Germany (which is what this war will most probably mean for them) means a poorer Germany, means a more politically restless Germany, hence a higher risk of them getting rid of "principles" (or morals, as Martin Wolf pontificates about) and start looking at the bigger picture, at what's good for Germany and for the Germans.
Again, not sure how looking at this chart [1] from that same FT piece can make the Americans believe that the Europeans (or, more precisely, the Germans) can suck it up for the foreseeable future, all in the name of "democracy". This is a de-facto lighter version of the Morgenthau plan.
During the Soviet era, South Ossetia was an autonomous oblast within the Georgian SSR. After Georgia declared independence from the USSR, South Ossetia declared independence from Georgia. They fought a war that ended in a stalemate, and Russia has essentially guaranteed South Ossetia's independence since.
Because today too, Russia claims that there is a “de facto” independent country in western Ukraine they are “helping”. Pretext for war, just as the South Ossetia pretext.
Import bit is: the West never reacted to Russian aggressions in any meaningful way.
Same how the west also didn't care, that after WW2, the USSR occupied all of Eastern Europe, or that before that, Hitler occupied Austria and Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia.
Seems like there's a historically repeating pattern here where the amount of warmongering and territorial occupation you can get away with is directly proportional to to your military force and inversely proportional to the willingness of other states to go to war with you as the occupier. Just like how the US and its coalition got away scot free after bombing the shit out of Vietnam, the middle east and destabilizing North Africa. All we could do is "condemn it" and take in refugees.
I would also add economic power and ability to inflict painful sanctions to the equation. But were you really expecting anything else? This is how it always worked and the only thing that prevents hot global scale conflicts now I think is the threat of MAD.
Companies usually don't plan for unprecedented actions.
Using an analogy, you don't see people rushing to live nearby a nuclear powerplant, do you? Even if the plant didnt have any accident before; the mere presence of it changes the risk.
Who's gonna sanction the US?
It wouldn't happen over trivial matters, but for an incident where the international community near universally disapproves of a US action China might want to show strength by imposing sanctions.
Nobody expected sanctions that cut Russia off from the world to an extent comparable only to North Korea. It's just something that people didn't imagine could happen to modern economies. People said cutting Russia off from SWIFT was absolutely unreasonable, impossible, and nobody would seriously consider it. Heads of state said they'd never do it despite the circumstances. Then they flipped and approved of it.
It's easy to look back and say "lol it's obvious" since it's in the news everyday and we're densensitized to it by now. But it was really a mindblowing series of events.
I think that one reason why it flopped that quickly is that Russia was creating precedents of what it is going to do around for years. So it became impossible to ignore.
Taking a whole country at once in mainland Europe and having its economy completely isolated within a span of weeks was about as predictable as a magnitude 9.0 earthquake. Nobody was prepared, and no preparation would've been sufficient no matter what.
This is just not true tho. Had Ukraine was not prepared, they would fold the way Russia expected them to. Instead, Ukraine did quite a lot of army reforms, lobbied to get guns long before war. They did not expected Russians to attack right now, because Russia seemed unprepared ... which they was. But they were not ruling out eventual attempt to takeover.
It is also not true that no-one anticipated. There were people both right before and longer before talking about eventuality - including Biden and American secret services. There were some people who did not cared about topic. There were many people who either knee jerkedly refused the eventuality, without looking at what is going on in Russia. Then there were people who rejected to possibility for political or financial reasons.
But, the notion that no-one was predicting it is simply untrue.
https://www.ft.com/content/5eda71fc-d678-41cd-ac5a-d7f324e19...
I also think this has always really been about the eastern Ukrainian region. The stuff about taking western Ukraine has been a strategic ruse and/or secondary aim.
> I also think this has always really been about the eastern Ukrainian region. The stuff about taking western Ukraine has been a strategic ruse and/or secondary aim.
I find this super unlikely. If the goal was eastern Ukrainian region, their initial attack makes zero sense. And also, their rhetoric's makes zero sense - they talked about Ukraine not being real country, Ukrainians not beaing real nation.
You don't need to attack Kyiv to get eastern region. There is nothing to suggest that this was ruse, but everything to suggest they failed and they are looking for second price.
There was a previous "bulling", that escalated later, as it always do. Both countries were in a war for Crimea since 2014, but I agree with your idea that it was unlikely.
What is really scary is that it takes so few people to put by now four countries in war (five if we count Georgia) in the middle or Europe, and trigger the events that drag the rest by inertia. Zillions of working hours to avoid exactly this, and it only takes one old man with obvious principles of dementia that denies all every single time like a child. This and less than 1000 helpers against 500 millions of people is all that we need to return to 1940.
That's false.
> It went from nothing to suddenly surrounding the country in weeks.
It started in 2014. Or maybe even earlier. That's not weeks. That's 8 years.
You know I haven't seen a single DPRK product in my life? Not one. Not even a book. Not even a propaganda poster, not a whole lot of those in the Americas. Yeah online I've seen them but that's not the same thing.
What happened to (and with) Russia is a tragedy. Really, a nation and people with so much potential. Hardworking and capable of great sacrifice. They hold vast territories with unparalleled abundance of resources. Imagine how much of a force of good they could be. Actually, forget that. They didn’t even need to be good, just create an environment where everyone can strive instead of the few. Imagine how powerful they could be if only they didn’t turn into a petty kleptocracy.
Don't say you're being charitable when you're being cruel.
But Russia's only export of value is gas.
Get China and India to go all-in on renewables, while getting a soft agreement with them that future gas purchases from Russia will cost them in other ways, and the question is who would want to join Russia's parallel system?
Didn't say my suggestion is easy or likely or without risk. It would take some really careful diplomacy.
but it is feasible.
Now lets look at the USA. Could be Oil/Gas independent, but current government makes that difficult. Dependent on Russia and China for many commodities and rare earth metals. Manafucturing sector has been exported to China over the past 20 years, meaning that many goods are not even made in the USA anymore. Huge shortage of semiconductors - which are used in every electronic product these days including cars. The USA must start the move of Manafucturing many more products again locally. They will cost more... but if it doesn't do this it will likely be in a very bad position if China tries to take over Taiwan.
In summary global supply chains must be re-adjusted, which will take years. Whether this helps prevent further war... or adjustments are because of war will depend on how things are handled by United States politicians and business leaders. At this stage I suspect it will likely be because of war for the US/West and China will have been planing for this eventuality.
China is already putting together a plan for when they are sanctioned by the US and West.
We should be preparing.
It's easy to forget that for several years, Putin was actually a halfway-decent steward of the Russian economy. That's what makes this whole thing so weird... he could have gone down in history as one of Russia's more respected leaders. All he had to do was not rock the boat. Instead, he literally sank it.
Putin simply had no reason -- certainly no reason that Yandex management could anticipate -- to tank his country's reputation along with his own. I feel incredibly bad for anyone who was trying to play by the rules and run a legitimate business in Russia. (Whether that describes Yandex, of course, is an entirely different point of debate.)
Though Yandex has to follow government regulations (especially in its media department), a lot of which are obviously biased.
2. I read it differently. The screws are tightened and company will be under control of board if Volozh dies, 2 of 12 board members are government-appointed. So I agree that government is trying to control Yandex tightly. It hasn't happened yet.
3. As far as I can see - Yandex does not support the war. And no russian commercial company can be openly against the war without effectively stopping the opperations immediately. Living under insane dictator is hard, but I don't think it is reponsible behaviour to turn shareholders investments into nil, leaving 20k people without job and millions of people without services (the last part is the least important because there are other local substitutes for most Yandex services). Genuine western companies can be openly against the war, because neither sufficient part of their income comes from Russia, nor most of their production/workforce is in Russia.
About your small things:
1. What kind of news can be aggregated from other sources is regulated by law. I mentioned that in my firs comment. There are _no_ non-pro-government news sources left in Russia. The ones that were still operating a short while ago regularly recieved strikes from regulators. You could make a point that it would have been better if Yandex just closed its news service entirely; and I would agree with you. I bet Yandex is thinking the same right now, but it is hard to make this decision when things were slowly regressing for 10 years and the tipping point was reached and news became toxic.
2. Right, because making statements to Putin makes such a great difference?
P.S. It is quite clear that in the recent years Yandex was trying to migrate from Russia as soon as possible to be less dependent on the whims of the regime. They did find the niches where they could be successful outside of Russia (at the very least - delivery, taxi and ride-heiling, cloud) but didn't have time to execute the plan.
2. You may read it differently, only if you are kind of very biased towards 'beautiful' Yandex, cause even in official statement it was written that's due to Russian politics system :) plus - read Government statement before and after this board was appointment. - 2 of 12 government appointed? lets read:
The PIF will be governed by a board comprising 11 directors, including representatives from five leading Russian universities (Higher School of Economics, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Moscow State University, St Petersburg State University and the St Petersburg National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics) and three non-governmental institutions (the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), Moscow School of Management Skolkovo and the Endowment of Moscow School #57)
all above is government appointed and 'pro'-government.
3. Yes, that's what Tigran told as CEO. We have to care about 20k employees and all that bullshit when at the same time Yandex.ru page showed all news that 'everything is fine, there is no war, some special kind of operation against nazi' being one of the major player of Russian propaganda.
No, you can't be 'anti-war' and doing that, you can't be silent, and yes if 20k stopped to worry about have 0 ability to buy new iPhone and millions of people service disrupted may be we saw not 4k people on the streets of Moscow but 100k-200k and then we could talk with government.
So yes, exactly that behavior allowing corrupt and crazy government doing anything they want.
lets talk about 'small things' as you say: 1. Bullshit. Meduza, novaya, skr - they could do it. they could close it as you say but they choose not. They are currently sold Yandex news to VK group, but basically they are telling look we are showing not Yandex news, but VK-news on our main page - we have no power over there. Disgusting.
// It is quite clear that in the recent years Yandex was trying to migrate from Russia as soon as possible to be less dependent on the whims of the regime. They did find the niches where they could be successful outside of Russia (at the very least - delivery, taxi and ride-heiling, cloud) but didn't have time to execute the plan.//
They were trying to do it as part of Yandex Group. So no, they was not trying to 'migrate from Russia', they was trying to find new markets, like they was trying do search in Turkey at 2010.
2. You are talking abut PIF board. I am talking about Yandex board. 2 of 12 Yandex board members are appointed by PIF.
3. Are you located in Russia or know people or organizations located in Russia who openly stated their anti-war statement while still being in the Country? I personally know a couple of people who have to spend a few years in prison now. Not much fun. I know a lot of people who moved away and stated their position openly, knowing that they can't be reached now. Yandex is obviously not in that position.
> They were trying to do it as part of Yandex Group. So no, they was not trying to 'migrate from Russia', they was trying to find new markets, like they was trying do search in Turkey at 2010.
They did. And 60% of revenue (in Russia) is coming from the services which were trying to expand abroad. As well as they started relocating employees in offices in other countries. If Yandex had any real business outside of Russia (which it finally had a chance to have) then it would have been a lot more willing to stand openly against this stupid shit.
> if 20k stopped to worry about have 0 ability to buy new iPhone and millions of people service disrupted may be we saw not 4k people on the streets of Moscow but 100k-200k and then we could talk with government.
We saw 100k people in 2011, nothing really changed. And that is when we had way milder police force. Right now, we gonna have more people in prisons when they try to come out to protest. _If_ they come out, because if I learned something, is that a lot of Russian people would say "OK, fine, fuck those rich software engineering bastards, we used to live without hot water, we can live without a few internet websites" (and go use competing services)
Also you missed the part where I talked about obligations to shareholders. I doubt most of them are willing to lose all they have invested. And CEO is kind of supposed to act in their interests.
> They are currently sold Yandex news to VK group, but basically they are telling look we are showing not Yandex news, but VK-news on our main page - we have no power over there. Disgusting.
I am not sure that this is the plan, they haven't yet sold anything yet, so we don't know what will happen once they do. I doubt that they will do that (VK group is a direct competitor, and news will still be perceieved as part of Yandex if they are show there). I don't want to speculate further until we see what happens.
I am probably as much unhappy about what is happening as you are. But I do think that Yandex was a net-positive for Russia, and the mistakes that they've made (by not closing news) are bad but they wouldn't have changed anything in the course of history.
> Taxes, land ownership, banking, bankruptcy etc. The economic block in the government remains very professional and impartial even now.
Russia has one of highest inequalities and quite poor population. It is also heavily corrupt. The macroeconomics works, but lower levels don't.
> The only thing Russia really needed to become a normal state was to reform judicial branch, police and security services.
That is kind of problem, given that Putin is former KGB agent, surrounded himself by alike people, became president duet to former KBG agents cooperating on gaining power ... Also, used both judicial branch and police against political opponents including journalists from day 1. They are corrupt basically as a matter of policy.
Putin did reformed judicial branch, police and security services. Just not the way we would like.
But Putin has always been the man he is now – the war in Chechnya began in 1999.
This is a very generic and abstract statement. If you think that the growth could happen without economic reforms that took place in early 2000s, please explain how exactly could that happen in the aftermath of second Chechen War and economic crisis of 1998.
What you saw in early 2000s in Russia was mostly caused by reforms in 1990s, but times were already turning to worse.
1. Tax reform: flat income tax of 13%, reduction in total number of taxes by 70%, reduction in social security tax, introduction of severance tax (captured 84% of profits from oil and gas in state budget)
2. Zero budget deficit and significant reduction of foreign debt
3. Reform of land ownership: created free market of the land
4. New Labor code and pension reform
5. Reform of banking sector and new bankruptcy law
Also, afaik, journalists writing against Putin were attacked (arrests, taking over of business) right as he got into power. The changes leading to contemporary ideology, effective rehabilitation of Stalin, the state murders were happening right away.
The events around Russia apartment building, the ones suspect of being done by FSB and Chechnya war were in 1999.
>The large ones were not independent in anything but the name long before being taken over by state.
Let's take a few concrete examples of really big companies: VKontakte, Wildberries and Magnit. How exactly Putin and his gang exercised the control over them before acquisition (Wildberries still belongs to the founder)?
1. Father of one of the co-founders had a business in St.Petersburg in 1990s, but already in 2001 he was arrested for kidnapping charges. Doesn't sound like a "friend", does not prove Putin's control over VK at that moment.
2. Source? The only thing I know is that the founder is distant relative of a person, who became VP in Rosneft in 2016, long after the company was founded. Quite a stretch for "patronage", though they could use their connections to defend from raider attacks and extortion.
3. Every large company in every country has some relationship with the government. This is not the same as control, not the same as having political influence over the company and not the same as using the business for embezzling the funds for political purposes. I know some companies where their GR was basically a CSO playing tennis with an old friend from FSB, which kept them under the radar of the regime - I would not even call it corruption (how often can you see a DA in USA playing golf with some businessman?). You have to be more specific.
The reason why government or affiliated oligarchs take over the businesses, is to gain control because they did not have it before.
2. Look into Bell research against widberries, its quite public.
3. Yep, fair point.
Sorry, I do not understand this. I did not mean literally Putin himself, but VK was not in any relationship with anyone from his inner circle (e.g. Timchenko, Rotenberg) or other oligarchs (e.g. Matvienko clan). Founders were forced to sell the company under pressure exactly because the government intended to get control over the most important social network, which it did not have.
>Look into Bell research against widberries, its quite public.
Do you mean the one from which I got information about relatives? https://thebell.io/nastoyashhaya-istoriya-wildberries-kak-ta...
It is a typical success story of an online retail business. It actually does not show anything that could be even slightly resemble affiliation with Putin and his inner circle. I know other relatively big companies which had similar growth trajectory and are still controlled by their founders.
//It is a typical success story of an online retail business. It actually does not show anything that could be even slightly resemble affiliation with Putin and his inner circle. I know other relatively big companies which had similar growth trajectory and are still controlled by their founders.//
In Russia? really? show me them. For now, I think you are really trying to look fav into Russian biz-scene, but that's not the case for the last 9 years. You either work with gov or you f-ked. That the rule here. Last example is Tinkoff, who at the beginning of his bank licked Putin ass as hard as he could, but now was forced to sell )
I will not give you a name, but this is a large online DYI retailer with over $0.5B in revenue. I know execs from there personally.
>For now, I think you are really trying to look fav into Russian biz-scene, but that's not the case for the last 9 years.
You probably forgot that we were talking about 2000s, not 2010s. Until 3rd term of Putin relationship of business and siloviki was usually transactional, but the economy was booming and the pie was big enough that some of the businesses were operating unnoticed. After events of 2012-2014 many things changed, but the climate was still tolerable - new companies were starting (e.g. Miro - it's great that they relocated early), there was visible progress in quality of life in big cities etc. 24.02.2022 changed everything.
Professional, yes.
Impartial, no. Complicit is the word.
Finland was always intended to be the weak member of EU when it comes to dealing with RU. There was the historical evidence of Finlandizierung to support this belief. Somehow Putin managed the impossible and united people from extreme right to far left in supporting Finland to join the NATO.
Very recently Finland (actually private company Fennovoima) cancelled the joint Fennovoima & Rosatom project to build a new nuclear power plant in Finland. This decision to cut Rosatom off the project was on a much larger economical scale and was widely greeted with welcome.
Russia 1 state TV has gone beserk recently, it's as bad as you could possibly imagine.
Nobody expected Putin to go this far.
Surely they knew that, as a Russian company, if their government ever becomes aggressive, they'll also be targeted by sanctions.