@Helian/Doug Drake
"It would be well if the Biden Administration “slow rolled” aid to Ukraine down to zero."
Sorry, can't agree. At most I'd agree if I felt the situation at the homefront was so catastrophic it was about to melt down and we'd need to get all bases here, or if the Asia-Pacific erupted on such a scale troops were needed now. But the latter isn't the case by any metric and the former is more debatable (and in any case at this stage would involve Committees of Correspondence and so on).
"It’s beyond me how anyone can seriously believe that the American people have such a compelling interest in fighting a proxy war against Russia that it justifies the real risk of a nuclear holocaust."
It's beyond me how the vast majority of people alive today have lived with a nuclear "Russia" all their lives, and have been able to see the many, many incidents of loud Soviet posturing on the threat of nukes, both seriously (such as the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Zhenbao Island Crisis with the Chinese) and not serious (such as the Berlin Crisis), and still assume we must bend and bow to every utterance and threat of the N word by Moscow's leadership.
It is also beyond me how we have around thirty years of post-Soviet Russian history and Putin's own track record to go off of, most of which time involved bipartisan American attempts to appease him to get him "on our side", and yet so many people believe we are just one turn away from accomplishing that if we give up more.
No. Sending aid to Ukraine is frankly a proper response to Putin's behavior, and particularly the violations of the Budapest Memorandum and Astana Accords. It also helps weaken a man who has shown by his conduct to be both a monster and someone who is not likely to ever be our friend unless forced to by something even more drastic.
I fundamentally reject there is a serious threat of a nuclear war over Ukraine. And not only do I do so, but so did most. Putin's latest posturing over the threat of nukes was loudly called out not just by the usual suspects in the West, and not only by powerful neutrals like South Africa and India, but also by his largest and most important ally in the PRC, who told him in no uncertain terms to cut it the hell out. Which is one reason he was forced into that humiliating climbdown in nuclear readiness (which of course was a lot less reported than the initial, politically/diplomatically motivated and not serious climb up because the MSM is an echo chamber and hysteria machine meant to drum up the threat of the Kremlin in order to justify more power grabs, not to actually inform).
The threat of a nuclear war over Ukraine may be hypothetically real, but it is not major. Particularly because the CCP has made it clear that for now it has no intention of supporting Putin if he does something that stupid and NATO has made it clear that they will not allow the actions of idiots in Moscow to spread radiation over their territory again.
Which brings us to the issue of living with risk. And particularly how to manage it. And I fail to see how weakness on this note would help the US as a whole on any level, including economic (given the likely shockwaves down the road from other nations cutting trade deals with us as they are starting to with Russia, and the big cereal crises in the Third World). That needs to be balanced by other considerations, especially that of fighting Prog overreach at home, and I will gladly sacrifice Ukraine for American freedom, but I do not think we are at that point yet.
"Ukrainian zealots pulled off a coup in 2014"
No, they did not.
Unless you want to define "Ukrainian zealots" as "Said President's own Parliamentary Bloc." Who I note either overwhelmingly voted for Yanukovych's removal or abstained (in essence accepting that removal). Largely because Yanukovych committed a bunch of serious crimes against the Ukrainian Constitution and his fellow people, escalating what was "yet another sectarian Ukrainian protest movement" through heavyhanded, illegal, and counterproductive nonsense that helped make it so that even his "Blue" Pro-Russian base no longer liked him, and why he fled when confronted with the prospect of being summoned by Parliament to answer pointed questions under oath about his and his cabinet's conduct, such as the authorization of the so-called "Dictatorship Laws" and the use of militarized police to do crimes that would make the ATF blush.
I have plenty of issues about how it was done (specifically, that it was done outside of the impeachment process, and specifically that the Ukrainian Constitution was worded so poorly there is no contingency for removing the President in light of what happened - namely a President abdicating his duties due to criminal conduct without formally resigning -, and that years later that gap STILL hasn't been fixed). But a little context goes a long way.
"against a President who had won an election that international observers deemed free and fair."
This is technically correct but missing the point.
Firstly: I find it telling and ironic that the proportion of people who will obsess over Yanukovych having won an election freely and fairly is inversely proportional to the amount of people who will bother to mention that the Parliament that removed him was ALSO Democratically elected in a free and fair election (indeed, THE VERY SAME ELECTION that he came in), and was in fact DOMINATED BY YANUKOVYCH'S COALITION.
Which seriously undermines the "coup" narrative and the idea that this was a plan by the CIA or Nuland (who I might note spent the 2010 Ukrainian Election trying to prevent these people from getting voted in, to the extent they weren't focused on screwing us at home).
Secondly: Yes, Yanukovych did win the 2010 election freely and fairly (after a failed attempt to rig the 2004 election). But that hardly is the end all to be all of republican legitimacy. After all, Obama did win two elections more or less freely and fairly. As did Literally Hitler and the Moldovan Communist Party.
But what matters isn't merely how one gains office but how one behaves in it. Which is why the first action of any President of Ukraine (or for that matter the US) is to swear an oath to the Constitution and abide by it. By just about any metric Yanukovych broke that oath many times over.
Thirdly: I note a key part of Yanukovych's 2010 election victory (taking advantage of the spectacular and self-destructive implosion of the "Orange" coalition that had defeated him in 2004) was explicitly appealing that he would negotiate for an Association Agreement with the EU, both to peel away disaffected "Orange" voters and to reassure his political base in the Eastern Russophone Rust Belts, who while leery of Europe tended to be even leerier of their degrading economic conditions.
And to be fair, for the first year or two of Yanukovych's Presidency he did pursue this triangulation for Ukrainian economic benefit, but then in a couple summits at Kharkhiv and Moscow Putin arm-twisted and as a result Yanukovych dropped this, to the irritation of even more of Ukraine's population than normal. Which was the direct spark for the Euromaidan protests.
ANOTHER fact that gets dropped down the memory hole of "Yanukovych the wrongfully ousted President" narrative.
"The next election would have been in a mere 6 months, but they couldn’t be bothered to wait that long."
Dear God, so much wrong with this...
Firstly: Early elections were agreed by even the former President Yanukovych in his Feb 21st 2014 agreement with the Parliamentary Opposition (which I note was condemned by many of the actual zealots in the street).
https://web.archive.org/web/20220312012719/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/21/agreement-on-the-settlement-of-crisis-in-ukraine-full-text
This happened before Yanukovych fled in response to the pointed parliamentary summons, and one could argue this was motivated in part by the hardline protesters' allies in the Parliament trying to torpedo the issue. Which is likely at least somewhat true, but doesn't change the fact that new elections were clear.
Secondly: Ukraine is a Quasi-Parliamentary system in which the President is elected alongside Parliament and if he goes, so does Parliament. Ergo, once it became clear Yanukovych was not going to return to Kyiv to face summons and especially once Parliament voted to remove him, it had to arrange for new elections like almost every non-farce Parliamentary system.
Which I note the Russian government took good advantage of by violently acting. While there was plenty of at least vaguely pro-Yanukovych* and more broadly pro-Russian protests and even paramilitary activities going on in Crimea and the Donbas, this turned violent with the deployment of Russian Spetznaz to Crimea (which Putin now admits he did in spite of denying) and the Donbas. To exploit the weak caretaker governments and their inability to do much.
"In spite of that, we’re told we’re involved in the war “because democracy.”
Because it's true, and also something the MSM and others react to as easier than explaining the exact clustereff of what happened in Ukraine and the finer points of the Budapest Memorandum and the Astana Declaration, among others.
It's also worth noting at this point that the Ukrainian Government did indeed hold the elections as scheduled, and had more, including a peaceful change of power from Government to Opposition in 2019. The same pointedly cannot be said for the DNR and LNR or indeed the Russian Federation Proper.
"The immediate fear of the Russian speaking population at the time was that they would become second-class citizens in their own country. That fear was obviously well founded."
Considering that Zelenskyy is a native Russian speaker and significant parts of the Ukrainian government and loyalists are native Russian speakers (including the likes of the much-maligned-and-rightfully-so Azov), it obviously wasn't that well founded. Indeed, you still have a number of old school "Blues" and former supporters of Yanukovych in the Rada today.
And in sharp contrast to the brutal repression of the Ukrainian Language/Dialect and Crimean Culture in the occupied areas.
"In the ensuing years we have seen the Russian language, culture, and religion suppressed."
Culture and language not really. As for religion the extent of it was crackdowns on the Moscow Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church. Which I might add isn't surprising considering it's headed up by a slavish KGB Sleeper agent turned FSB agent..
https://orthodoxtimes.com/patriarch-of-moscow-worked-for-the-kgb-in-the-1970s-swiss-media-reports/
..... who has outright endorsed the invasion of Ukraine as a holy war to the point of committing Literal Blasphemy against his Church's dogma.
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/russian-orthodox-leader-patriarch-kirills-unholy-war-against-ukraine/
Gee, Why MIGHT the Ukrainian government which perceives itself (I think CORRECTLY) as being in an existential war for its national survival start scrutinizing and disentangling local churches tied to a blasphemous Chekist who has declared that death in this "crusade" will give absolution without repentance?
The Continental Congress imposed far more draconian measures against the Anglican Church in the Colonies during the Revolution to prevent even *prayer for King George III* (which as a Christian I'd argue is one of the most Christian and human of acts, including the prayer that a grave sinner following the path of damnation realize they are in the wrong and turn back, and which is one action of the Founders that grates on me).
"Russians have been denied the right to educate their children in their own language."
Only in public government education.
This is not surprising considering
A: How the Russian Government has imposed draconian measures against Ukrainian and Tatar language education in its own territory
and
B: How the Kremlin is trying to use the presence of Russian language speakers to play a shell game in order to justify the invasion and partition of Ukraine.
I'll also note the Kremlin had no such scruples banning Arab language education in Dagestan and Chechnya many times over during less serious crises.
I don't have to like it or agree with everything the Ukrainian government does, and indeed I oppose this one. But a little context goes a long way, and it's particularly perverse that by depriving context (such as the Crimean Governate's votes against Ukrainian and Tatar education in the Spring of 2014, before the Poroshenko government was voted in) you are making this look as if it were purely a provocation rather than a reaction.
"Bandera, a Nazi collaborator, has been elevated to the level of a Ukrainian national hero."
Which is true and something I despise. And frankly calling Bandera a "Nazi Collaborator" downplays his role considering he spent a relatively modest amount of time as a Nazi Collaborator but spent his whole life as a violent, murderous Fascist terrorist who fought everybody (Nazis, Soviets, Poles, and other Ukrainian Nationalists) for his dream of an independent Ukrainian Dystopia. He only looks good when put next to Literally Hitler and Literally Stalin (and unfortunately that is what he was next to), and so I view his cult as distasteful.
"The reaction of many Russians in Ukraine is reflected in “Torch of New Russia,” by Pavel Gubarev."
I'm not going to waste much time with this scumbag, because I am pretty sure I fisked his BS before and I can try and find it, but even if I can't there's not too much to say. But I struggle to imagine why you find someone who you admit is a Soviet shill and someone prepared to lie blatantly for totalitarian mass murderers both past and present (in the case of Maduro) would be so trustworthy here.
But Gubarev's a nutjob even by the standards of Donbaschukuo separatists, let alone actual "Russians in Ukraine." There's a reason why his political profile before the invasions of 2014 was nil and why he had essentially zero connection to the existing Party of Regions machinery and whose polity party had last had seats in 1998. Because while Soviet nostalgia, pro-Russian politics, and so on might have been something of a fact of life for many in the Donbas, being a Neo-Nazi Panslavist Autatarkist was decidedly not. Which is why he came to "political prominence" during the invasion when he headed up a collaborationist paramilitary.... and then got sidelined by the main DNR Leadership who realized he was unpopular and politically toxic.
(I leave it to you to imagine why a NazBol might be unpopular in a region that was heavily hit during the "Great Patriotic War" by Nazi quotas on coal mining to the point of death as well as more mundane brutality.)
The idea that Gubarev represents the views of "many Russians in Ukraine" is.... TENUOUS to say the least, even among collaborationists.
"That said, he also strikes me as an honest, sincere individual who has published some facts that one is unlikely to find in the remarkably uniform and one-sided propaganda churned out by the western media."
...I'm sorry, but how much of him have you read, and particularly other comments on him?
Because this strikes me as - to put it bluntly - STAGGERINGLY poor judgement on your part, because again Gubarev is a proven totalitarian shill, nutjob, and - this particularly damning - wanton liar who is viewed with disdain even by his erstwhile peers. Which is one reason he had so little credibility and why one of my Russian friends claimed they were literally laughing out loud when I told them about this exchange.
"He describes how the Russians in Ukraine immediately, and correctly, perceived the Maidan coup as a threat, and one sufficiently serious that they were willing to give up their livelihoods, homes, and, in many cases, lives, to fight back."
This gets undermined if you actually look at the areas the "Separatists" took over and compare it to the actual area of Russophone majorities. At most this accurately represents the anxiety after the fact in places from Luhansk to Kharkhiv about the paramilitary violence and abusive LEO and gangs that had been prevalent in Euromaidan on all sides, and the anxiety after Yanukovych's flight and removal from office. But it does fark all to explain where sustained fighting broke out.
"He claims that, in the beginning, they received no support from Russia at all other than in the official media, and I believe him."
Nah, that's complete bullshit.
Putin's now admitted he deployed Spetznaz into Crimea as "Little Green Men" at the exact time he was claiming not to have done so. To be completely fair they intervened into ongoing protests between Pro and Anti Government groups (including the nascent "Crimean Self-Defense Forces") so I won't claim the Kremlin completely invented tension. But they did exploit them and vastly escalate them by seizing the peninsula and violently storming the paralyzed and confused Ukrainian military (who had remained in their barracks).
https://press.armywarcollege.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2917&context=parameters
While it doesn't take much to realize he also did so in the Donbas, as we can trace from the actions of both given personnel like Girkin, but also military equipment exclusive to the Russian Federation which was spotted within literal days of the start.
https://informnapalm.org/en/database-russian-weaponry-donbas/
This is important because while AK-74s and so on are easy (especially in a place known for weapon smuggling during peacetime like the Black Sea in general and the Sea of Azov in particular) and even major equipment pieces like the T-80 could be explained away by the private involvement of some oligarch or Igor leaving a door open for smugglers to get his Krokodil fix, things like the GAZ Tigr can't be so explained.
Which dovetails well with what we see in terms of personnel and movement, both what is now acknowledged by the Russian Government re: Crimea and what we can guess.
While Donbas and Crimea were already tinerboxes with some low-level "Mostly Peaceful Protest" style clashes, they didn't become a war until false-flagged Russian military units crossed the border in force back in 2014. And we know they did that because we can trace their movements.
"Gubarev also correctly points out that the regions under contention, what he calls New Russia, including Donetsk, Luhansk, Crimea, and much of the region north of the Black Sea reconquered by Russia from the Tatars and Turks, were never historically part of any geographical or national entity that one could reasonably claim was ever “Ukraine."
Firstly: Even calling this "correct" is torturous because Gubarev is pointedly ignoring the fact that "The Ukraine" started out as a geographical entity to refer to shared cultures and whatnot, and while it didn't have all of its current territory it certainly stretched into the Western Donetsk and Luhansk.
Secondly: It's probably flat out false in the case of Crimea considering how it was integrated with the nascent Ukrainian state for a couple of years between 1917 when German and Ukrainian Nationalist paramilitaries took it over (something I wargamed twice but stopped because it was pretty boring) and early 1919 when the collapse of the Second Reich and the resumption of civil war in Ukraine led to the Russian Whites seizing it.
And of course, there's also the glaring issue of "everything between the mid 1950s and now" when Ukraine was a "Geographical and national entity one could reasonably claim was Ukraine" in the form of the Ukrainian SSR (which was so distinct the Soviets demanded it be given its own seat in the UN, mostly for political reasons before they realized how counterproductive it would be with the UK and US threatening to slap them back), and later the independent Republic of Ukraine, whose international borders were recognized many times over in documents such as the Budapest Memorandum.
Which I note the Russian Government, the US, and the UK all signed.
"Large parts of these territories were tacked onto Ukraine in the 1930’s by Communist bureaucrats for ideological and political reasons."
And also practical ones, because as WWII revealed it's kind of freaking hard and counterproductive to administer the Crimea from Russia and the place was habitually underutilized, to the catastrophic detriment of all when the Nazis rolled in during WWII and found a largely derelict region, and afterwards when recovery was unacceptably sluggish.
It doesn't help that these regions have historically been quite integrated (albeit often in a negative fashion, such as the literal centuries of Mongol/Tatar Predation from Crimea).
"I suppose one can call these actions “legitimate” if one is a Communist sympathizer. "
Firstly: I don't have to call these actions legitimate, but I do acknowledge that the post-war recognition by the non-communists that these were reasonable boundaries not worth the grief of changing IS legitimate. We don't abolish every arbitrary administrative transfer, as the OAU pointed out (BTW: how do you think most African governments would like the argument that Crimea and Donbas aren't part of Ukraine because of Imperial or Colonial or Communist shifting? Not very well). And sometimes even ruthless totalitarian bureaucrats can make decent shifts, like with Mussolini's redistricting of occupied Slovenia that have largely stayed.
Secondly: That's the thing. You've mentioned how Gubarev is a Red (actually Red-Black, but that's on the side) and an unashamed Communist Sympathizer. So why do you think he is throwing shade on his predecessors for this and not others like the transfers of Gaguzia and Abkhazia?
Did it come to you?
"Crimea was later added to “Ukraine” as a “birthday present” by then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, himself a Ukrainian."
Yeah that's absolute fucking bullshit, as covered here.
https://www.jmhum.org/en/news-list/932-this-day-february-19-1954-a-decree-transferring-the-crimean-peninsula-from-the-russian-soviet-federative-socialist-republic-to-the-ukrainian-ssr
Khruschev was not Stalin, and while he was a totalitarian dictator he could not merely ram through everything without some degree of support. The "Birthday Party to Ukraine" narrative is a convincing one by Russian imperialists, but it collapses pretty much immediately upon examining the actual history and sources. Especially when you realize Khruschev had scant love for Ukraine per se.
Khruschev didn't reassign Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR because he was a Ukrainian that wanted a "Birthday Present." He reassigned it because he was a Communist Bureaucrat and Central Planner who noticed that the Russian SSR's Bureaucracy had botched administering the Crimea multiple times, and a decade after the end of the Axis occupation had still not rebuilt it well.
Which is KIND OF A MAJOR ISSUE when that was the USSR's major Black Sea series of Ports and Naval Bastions, and how the Russian SSR's bureaucratic screwups had been a major reason why Crimea had fallen to the Axis during WWII in the First Place. Which is one reason why the transfer was done and probably the single most important region. And it's probably not a coincidence that when administered closer to home the peninsula did rebound better.
None of this was really a cultural or political statement, and still less a national one. But it was an administrative one taken for serious reasons by the Soviet leadership and not just Khruschev, for reasons I humorously and grimly predicted the Pro-Kremlin separatists in Crimea would soon realize (which has largely been proven right). And which all parties involved agreed would remain after independence by both Russia and Ukraine.
"In all of these regions the majority language was Russian."
This is true, though I note this was against the backdrop of literally centuries of cultural and linguistic oppression, including at various stages (and sometimes all at once):
A: Loudly insisting that Ukrainian was just a dialect of Russian.
B: Trying to persecute those speaking this "dialect of Russian"* in favor of the "correct" one.
* No, I do not think realization of how dumb and stupid this made them look was widespread.
C: Clamping down on any indications of a separate cultural or - Tsar Forbid - national identity down South.
Which as you can imagine went from forcibly labeling Proto-Ukrainian (or even outright Ukrainian) speakers as speaking Russian, to outright killing them.
But on the whole that's a technicality and I admit these regions are mostly Russian speakers.
"By all means, read the book. Then look at the reviews. The negative ones have obviously been written by Ukrainian fanboys and zealots who either never read the book, or whose reading comprehension skills are remarkably poor."
Right. You can't imagine any other reason why people would downvote a hated-even-among-his-peers fringe National Bolshevik and liar?
I haven't read his book and for obvious reasons I do not intend to at present, though I have read enough of his publicly on offer drivel to believe I would not get much if anything of value out of it beyond a more granular understanding of his particular cocktail of biases, delusions, and conscious lies. In particular reiterating the Khruschev-Crimea myth and lying to your face about the presence of Russian forces in the Donbas should be more than enough to write him off as a serious source, if ya know *being a massive freaking Soviet shill who supports Red-Shaded Big Lies in Venezuela and Cuba Wasn't Enough.*
I think it also explains why my aforementioned Russian friend laughed out loud (or at least claimed to) when I told them how Gub struck you as a honest and sincere person. Because you have to realize that while the orders transferring Crimea from the RSSR to UkSSR are not the most accessible to English language readers (albeit still accessible as I showed), *they are available in Russian.* So there is Literally No Reason Gubarev could not have cited them - compete with the text- if his claim was true.
Buti t wasn't, and he didn't. Which I think gives more than enough circumstantial evidence to indicate rens mea; intention to deceive.
"Let’s turn for a moment to the geopolitical position of the United States. The only significant threat we face in the world is not Russia, but China."
Even if this were true, it ignores Putin's longstanding decision to align with the PRC against us going back to the early 2000s at the very latest, as Mark Steyn (hardly an MSM shill) pointed out way back in America Alone. Which is why I view the "Putin or China?" choice to be a false dichotomy. We're unlikely to be able to choose.
"She has illegitimately claimed much of the South China Sea, and just published a map in which large swaths of her neighbor’s territories are labeled “China.”"
This is correct. However I fail to see how this situation is benefitted by allowing the Russian dictatorship to illegitimately and even more violently claim large swaths of its neighbors' territory, as it has done throughout the 1990s and to today.
"The idea that she will never make such claims on Russia, a country whose borders with her were the result of what she calls “unequal treaties,” is the purest fantasy."
This is true. The issue issue is that by and large, the PRC has opted to favor Moscow's friendship or at least dependence over immediate land grabs. Moreover, the PRC calculates that *it does not NEED* to directly and forcibly seize the territory it desires NOW in order to eventually own it. Especially given the depths of Chinese demographic, political, and commercial penetration of Siberia.
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2100228/chinese-russian-far-east-geopolitical-time-bomb
https://euro-sd.com/2019/05/articles/13223/a-ticking-bomb-chinese-immigration-to-russias-far-east/
It's also why I note that the PRC - in spite of being utterly humiliated militarily in the Zhanbao Island War - realizes it ultimately got the territory it wanted through a mixture of political and diplomatic pressure. This is the lesson the CCP has learned in dealing with Russia, and why it feels confident it can wait to rewrite the "Unequal Treaties" in the North, especially given Russian demographic issues and a focus towards Europe.
But it needs an at least grudgingly willing partner to do it. My Russian friends keep mentioning how the Chinese are utterly hated in Russia, and I absolutely believe them. The groundswell of resentment is there, even if most realize the CCP is a valuable partner. So who would be willing there?
"In other words, Russia is a natural ally of the United States and a potentially valuable one against this aggressor state,"
I'm more cautious about it being a 'natural ally." The period of history where the US and Russia were "natural allies" extended about a century, and probably a bit less, to when the US actually obtained a border (however indirectly) with Russia, engaged in diplomatic rapprochement with Britain and France after the Civil War, and got oodles of new immigrants from the Tsar's repression breeding a bunch of native-born interest groups leery of Russia. Couple that with Russian focus on dominating as much of East Asia and the Black Sea as possible and "closing" the door (in sharp contrast to US interests) and it fell apart.
Moreover, I'll note that historically Russian policy towards China has favored avoiding direct confrontation, and often direct confrontation period. While there were border wars with the Qing in the 1600s (which the Muscovites lost badly) it would take about 200 years before Russia would risk seizing more territory, and even then on the coattails of victorious British and French troops in the the 1850s. The half-century after that until the Russian Revolution was probably the low point in Sino-Russian affairs as the two fought over Manchuria (which got to be so bad Chinese public opinion outright favored *the Japanese* in the 1904-1905 war, complete with local warlords fielding dozens of thousands of irregulars and guerillas to harass them), but after the collapse of the Tsarist Empire and the Bolshevik revolution you saw another half century of close contact.
I feel as Americans we tend to either not learn mistakes, or overlearn from them. I feel the turn of the millennium saw is badly over-learn the lessons of the Sino-Soviet Split (which was already healing under Brezhnev's later years), and discounted the affinity between Moscow and Beijing, especially among the "Organs." We also overlooked how manpower-starved Siberia is, and how firmly Westward-fixed Moscow is.
But all of this is almost beside the point I want to make: That even IF Russia is a natural ally against the PRC, *That does NOT mean that Putin and the other Russian State Bureaucrats and "Organs" are.* Indeed, we have ABUNDANT history showing they are very much Not so.*
Mark Steyn and a host of others such as VDH noted the risk of an alliance between the Politburo in Beijing and the Kremlin in Moscow in the early 2000s, and Steyn in particular noted how it was probable that attempts by the West to woo Russia or at least Putin from the CCP would probably be futile. I think they have been more than vindicated, especially since this match made in hell fits their MO.
China wishes to focus South on trying to rewrite history and obtaining a maritime empire and a strong frontier against India. Russia wishes to focus West towards seizing supposedly unredeemed Russian territory and padding out its demographic pyramid. Both are ruled by people who hate and fear the West, and particularly the US, and have for a long time .Moreover, cooperation would allow both to pool their resources in Central Asia rather than fighting over it, and to ignore the Siberian issue to mutual benefit.
"currently outproducing the US in most of the materials that might be called the “sinews of war” by a wide margin."
Largely because the RF is dependent on military exports to a much larger degree than we are, and we have been under Dem leadership that has been cutting the military to the bone. However they almost certainly have weaker "potential" to ramp up than we do, as we're seeing here.
"Alienating her for no good reason whatever is idiocy."
I agree. But I don't think we were the ones that alienated Russia, and I don't think this is for "no good reason."
Because I saw this argument before coming from Obama's fetid mouth after the Georgia War, and I'm utterly sick of it.
We need to acknowledge at least the POSSIBILITY (I think frankly certainty, but in the interests of the benefit of the doubt) that Vladimir Putin is simply a brutal, thuggish, anti-Western warlord who was going to be alienated from us no matter how many of our Presidents spent their early first terms slavishly sucking up to him, and particularly after we made it clear he could not get a "Russia Exemption" to the rules of joining NATO.
He's been doing this rope-a-dope with Western leaders across the political spectrum for nearly thirty years and I've been around long enough to see all but one of these five cycles play out personally. Of course I don't think Trump had nearly as craven or dumb motivations for his early term reach out to Putin as the others (let alone as he was smeared), precisely given the threat of the CCP. But the fact remains it ended about as badly, precisely BECAUSE Trump was not willing to let Putin humiliate him or upstage the US without consequences, and Trump was not willing to let Putin do his Kwantung Army Cosplay act in Ukraine like Obama (and at the time his Veep Biden) did.
If we're going to seek Russia as a "natural ally" against the CCP, we're going to have to ask ourselves some fairly pointed questions about HOW we'll do that, what are acceptable terms for such an alliance, how we'll be sure a Russian Government is actually adhering to them, and how likely it is a given Russian Government would go for them.
I've come to the conclusion that Putin and those close to him are probably not going to be there for us, and frankly that pretending another decade of courting him for this is a fantasy borne out of Foggy Bottom and Wishful thinking rather than actually observing his behavior and policies. People are, of course, free to disagree with that conclusion as they will, but I would (sincerely) like to hear their reasoning, their argumentation, and their evidence.
But I frankly believe any Russo-American alliance will have to be dependent on Putin and co going Bye-Bye and probably full Decommunization in Russia.
"Another common fantasy, and a very dangerous one, is the notion that our meddling in an affair that doesn’t concern us can’t possibly result in a nuclear holocaust, probably by miscalculation rather than deliberate intent."
This is agreed, but another fantasy and at least as dangerous is the belief that saber-rattling must always be responded to, and that concessions to an outlaw dictatorship with WMD will always lessen the risk of nuclear holocaust rather than have no effect or increase it. Shucking this and "Detente" was one of the great realizations of the Reagan Revolution against the USSR and I see no reason to discount it now, even if those lessons have to be taken carefully.
"We are told that the US and Russian weapons are old and won’t work."
Indeed, I believe this is at best an unlikely possibility and far more likely a delusion. Dictators tend to prize their WMD above almost all else. Saddam may not have given a fig about Shiite infant mortality in the South but he sure as hell made sure he had squirreled away his old Chemical Artillery Shells in decently hidden locations and several metric tons of equipment, material, and knowledge on it.
I think we have to work with the assumption that Russia's WMD are working as intended and can be used, much like ours. I don't think this would change our actions much if at all (especially given how unlikely it is the Kremlin is going to launch a first strike when told even by its major geopolitical partners that this will not be supported), but prepare for the worst, hope for the best. If nothing else, I think a Putin regime that is seriously willing to contemplate the use of WMD over the Ukraine war is so belligerent, irrational, and lawless it will probably be willing to do so for something else, and if that's the case I'd much rather have then need to spend a few warheads on Ukrainian and Georgian targets than to be able to lob all of them at NATO.
Morbid absolutely, but "Share the Risk" is pretty important in general, especially when it comes to this.
"As it happens, I was involved in one capacity or another with the US nuclear weapons complex for much of my career. I ended it as a classifier with broad oversight over that complex."
For whatever our differences, thanks for our service.
"if you think the weapons on either side “won’t work,” you’re dreaming."
Agreed on the whole, which is why I've never argued on such. Russia is not Pakistan, and even with Pakistan I'd have to be nervous on it.
" Tell me, is it really worth the risk?"
Depends on what the risk is. But I'd ask you: Where do we draw the line and say "Enough"?
Putin's invasion of Ukraine wasn't just a crime. For starters, it was a series of crimes. But they were also calculated insults to Western leadership he had contempt for (and usually ample reason for it), consciously violating the Budapest Memorandum and the Astana Declaration, among others. He believed for various reasons -especially Georgia - that he would not be seriously opposed.
Mercifully, he has proven himself to be largely wrong. Outside of Obama's fetid and weak appeasing at the end (including trying to shotgun marriage Ukraine and Russia into the Minsk "Ceasefire" that was largely according to the Kremlin's benefit) DC and others called his bluff. Trump interpreted Putin's nonsense for what it was and retaliated by authorizing lethal aid to Ukraine and actually upholding red lines, such as cratering Baathist Syrian airstrips supposedly used for the deployment of Chemical WMD*, and blasting Wagner (at a time when Wagner was used as a deniable arm of the Russian State) when they crossed a red line. Biden and his puppetmasters responded to Putin escalating the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 (after possibly helping to provoke that escalation by calculated signs of weakness) by sanctioning Russia and intensifying the arms because they saw it as a politically convenient way to help demonize us.
On the whole I believe those responses are more than justified, even if the reasons for the latter chill my blood. Moreover, I have absolutely no faith in either Putin or the Russian Bureaucracy to actually stick to any anti-CCP deal rather than the SCO. In which case I believe the proper method is to humiliate them. Politically, Diplomatically, Militarily. I am not prepared to give everything for such an outcome, ESPECIALLY given the domestic enemies, but I do believe that this will help buy us time, space, and credibility to sort out our house at home and to deter the CCP from any "Short, Victorious Wars" before their expected sunset in the 2030s. And moreover I believe that it also accords with American interests in principles, that one of our avowed enemies and a regular backstabber not be permitted to violently annex his neighbors and threaten us without response, and that the Ukrainians deserve an equitable and free outcome to their country (which I note the Kremlin does not promise, and has not implemented even in Crimea, let alone the DNR and LNR).
I am not even inherently opposed to Crimea or parts of the Donbas joining with Russia. I am however opposed to the force, fraud, violence, and murder by which that was done.
But I think I can ask you a few questions.
Firstly: Given the risks of this situation, is it really worth getting the core of your knowledge on this subject from a literal National Bolshevik like Gubarev? (And keep in mind: *I DO NOT* want you to base your assessment of this situation off of MINE, in spite of how I believe I am much less deluded, dishonest, and so on than Gubarev and probably more broadly knowledgeable. By all means, check my claims. Consider carefully.)
Secondly: How much are we willing to concede to Putin or another Russian government for the prospect of getting him as an ally against the CCP? What is "Too Much" and the point where we cut ties?
Thirdly: How would we guarantee the Russian Government abides by such an anti-Chinese alliance?
Fourthly: How much risk is acceptable risk for us, in terms of the threat of nuclear war? It will never be exactly 0, so where do we draw the line?