I remember Obama complaining that Putin behaved like a bored school child in a meeting.
He held a high ranking position in the KGB. Was he bored, or intentionally ignoring your meaningless rhetoric whilst he calculated the likely response to his Georgia campaign?
He directly killed people in the UK and we only made a bit of noise.
He knows the importance of NS2 and how that will impact what he can get away with.
I’d personally not like to hang Ukraine out to dry and want to see British military support, but also don’t want the UK to act if France or Germany are more concerned with economics.
When West has only talks as the answer to Russia, then Russia has already won.
Frankly I do not see major EU countries or US caring all that much about what happens to Ukraine. I guess only Turkey, Poland, Baltics and Romania have vested interest to confront Russia over Ukraine.
The premise of the article is simply bad.
>The buildup is leading to alarm that an invasion may be imminent. It has also led to an urgent debate about Russia’s intentions. What does Russia really expect to achieve by amassing troops? Does it think it can push Ukraine to install a pro-Russian government after seven years of military hostilities? Or is it pursuing other aims?
>The inscrutability of the Kremlin’s intentions may in fact be their purpose. Russian policymakers have long tried to veil their motivations, keeping their adversaries and rivals guessing in a bid for strategic ambiguity.
Kremlin is quite open with it’s ever-growing list of demands. They are more than happy to tell you exactly what it is they want in unambiguous terms.
What is unknown is just how much they’re willing to bulge on these issues, but that’s normal in any kind of signaling. However the idea that we don’t really know what they want is simply lazy.
To paraphrase Michael Kofman, it’s analytical nihilism, the ‘I don’t know, we don’t know, nobody knows’ school of thought.
Russia: “We want X”
Analysts: “But what does Russia *really* want? Oh it will forever remain a mystery”
>Nevertheless, it is difficult to see what Russia would tangibly gain from a renewed military assault. The conflict in the Donbas has alienated the Ukrainian population in most of the country (the primarily Russian-speaking Donbas itself excepted) and helped consolidate a more unified Ukrainian identity.
These motherfuckers still think in terms of “hearts and minds”, as if Russia is out to nation build in Ukraine lol
>These realities invariably limited the options available to Washington. The Kremlin assumes that this remains the U.S. view and that the use of Russian military force would not be met with concomitant Western force.
Why wouldn’t the Kremlin assume that? It’s something that was put to test, and no amount of ambiguous signaling is going to change that calculus.
>Russia’s recent behavior, including the current crisis, indicates that the Kremlin would actually like a China-focused Biden administration to direct more of its attention to Russia, as it did during the Geneva summit.
The Kremlin wants to basically renegotiate the European security framework. They’d be more than happy to have the US fuck off and become a non factor, but that’s not gonna happen.
>U.S.-Russian relations have always been a mix of cooperation and confrontation.
You have rediscovered selective engagement, good job.
As an American who favors a much smaller military I also think the best way to stop this nuisance permanently is to round up France, UK, Germany and the US and let Ukraine into NATO and station American troops on the border and never speak to Putin at all.
4 comments
“But keep him guessing”.
Are the west stupid or something?
I remember Obama complaining that Putin behaved like a bored school child in a meeting.
He held a high ranking position in the KGB. Was he bored, or intentionally ignoring your meaningless rhetoric whilst he calculated the likely response to his Georgia campaign?
He directly killed people in the UK and we only made a bit of noise.
He knows the importance of NS2 and how that will impact what he can get away with.
I’d personally not like to hang Ukraine out to dry and want to see British military support, but also don’t want the UK to act if France or Germany are more concerned with economics.
When West has only talks as the answer to Russia, then Russia has already won.
Frankly I do not see major EU countries or US caring all that much about what happens to Ukraine. I guess only Turkey, Poland, Baltics and Romania have vested interest to confront Russia over Ukraine.
The premise of the article is simply bad.
>The buildup is leading to alarm that an invasion may be imminent. It has also led to an urgent debate about Russia’s intentions. What does Russia really expect to achieve by amassing troops? Does it think it can push Ukraine to install a pro-Russian government after seven years of military hostilities? Or is it pursuing other aims?
>The inscrutability of the Kremlin’s intentions may in fact be their purpose. Russian policymakers have long tried to veil their motivations, keeping their adversaries and rivals guessing in a bid for strategic ambiguity.
Kremlin is quite open with it’s ever-growing list of demands. They are more than happy to tell you exactly what it is they want in unambiguous terms.
What is unknown is just how much they’re willing to bulge on these issues, but that’s normal in any kind of signaling. However the idea that we don’t really know what they want is simply lazy.
To paraphrase Michael Kofman, it’s analytical nihilism, the ‘I don’t know, we don’t know, nobody knows’ school of thought.
Russia: “We want X”
Analysts: “But what does Russia *really* want? Oh it will forever remain a mystery”
>Nevertheless, it is difficult to see what Russia would tangibly gain from a renewed military assault. The conflict in the Donbas has alienated the Ukrainian population in most of the country (the primarily Russian-speaking Donbas itself excepted) and helped consolidate a more unified Ukrainian identity.
These motherfuckers still think in terms of “hearts and minds”, as if Russia is out to nation build in Ukraine lol
>These realities invariably limited the options available to Washington. The Kremlin assumes that this remains the U.S. view and that the use of Russian military force would not be met with concomitant Western force.
Why wouldn’t the Kremlin assume that? It’s something that was put to test, and no amount of ambiguous signaling is going to change that calculus.
>Russia’s recent behavior, including the current crisis, indicates that the Kremlin would actually like a China-focused Biden administration to direct more of its attention to Russia, as it did during the Geneva summit.
The Kremlin wants to basically renegotiate the European security framework. They’d be more than happy to have the US fuck off and become a non factor, but that’s not gonna happen.
>U.S.-Russian relations have always been a mix of cooperation and confrontation.
You have rediscovered selective engagement, good job.
As an American who favors a much smaller military I also think the best way to stop this nuisance permanently is to round up France, UK, Germany and the US and let Ukraine into NATO and station American troops on the border and never speak to Putin at all.