Kane Starkiller wrote:
North Vietnam was 5%-10% of the population of South Vietnam?
I'm not talking about North Vietnam, I'm talking about the internal situation South Vietnam faced. Its American propaganda that the Vietnam War was a war against purely the North, with America on the side of the South.
Where is the support for pro Russian movement throughout villages in Ukraine that are not controlled by pro Russian rebels? Who faced total collapse a few months ago if there were not for magical opening on the Mariupol front and sudden magical increase in fighting capability?
How would you even know that support existed, since the support
takes the form of the mere existence of rebels? You can tell yourself all day that the only reason the rebellion exists is because they're all Russians from outside Ukraine, but its
plainly bullshit, as the article posted above indicates. Even NATO now is saying that the vast majority of rebels are Ukrainians, with Russian troops in an advisory role. Doesnt' stop Kiev telling bullshit fairy tales about "15,000" and "9,000" troops, but then they were never big on facts since the beginning. Furthermore, the fact that Russia intervened to prevent their military defeat has nothing at all to do with establishing the bona fides of their rebellion. Rebellions are suppressed all the time.
Ukraine might have been an independent nation for 23 years but Ukrainian people had a sense of their own identity long before that.
Some Ukrainians did, some Ukrainians didn't. In any event, you're speaking in purely ideological terms. Ask a Ukrainian if they're willing to endure mass economic havoc by having millions of their citizens barred from working in Russia, the response will be a bit less idealistic than "oh, I love Europe".
I'm having trouble imagining when the word ally wouldn't mean a country one has to defend.
America has plenty of allies it is plainly not willing to defend militarily. Different treaties say different things.
Having Ukraine as an ally means US would stop Russian influence right on its borders. It would mean Ukrainian resources won't be combined with Russian and potentially turned against US. Instead Ukrainian resources will be combined with US resources to be turned against Russia since it is both in Ukrainian and US interest to contain aggressive Russian behaviour. Can Russia decide to outright invade Ukraine? Sure but this is a risk you make every time you ally yourself with someone.
America's not willing to take that risk. No serious foreign policy commentator thinks otherwise. America's trying to pull Ukraine out of Russia's orbit on the cheap. Problem: its not cheap.
I mean that you haven't demonstrated how Cuba is not a good example. Cuba was considered by US to be its back yard, USSR butted in, US threatened and tried covert invasions and it even got USSR to back down regarding nuclear missiles but at the end of the day Cuba remained USSR's ally. Ukraine cannot be strangled by Russian navy the way Cuba could've been by US navy therefore US plan to move Ukraine into its camp has at least as much chance of succeeding as USSR move in Cube and probably a much greater chance.
Its not a good example because unlike Cuba's relationship with the US, Ukraine has massive economic dependency on Russia and an economy in such incredibly poor shape that it needs
hundreds of billions of dollars in aid
plus painful reforms to allow it to continue as a viable state.
USSR tried to take on a country whose economy was never less than 2 times larger than its own. The outcome of that battle was arguably preordained so in the final analysis sure one can say it didn't get anything out of it. But during the Cold War having Cuba as an ally did mean a share of insecurity was introduced into the Carribean and free access of Texan and Louisiana ports to open ocean was threatened in a way redirecting US energy and attention from Eurasia.
That's a highly dubious argument. The Soviet Navy never had any significant presence in that area and Cuba was no credible threat to it on its own.
If the referendum is irrelevant why does yes vote correspond perfectly to percentage of non-Russians in Ukraine?
Because whether you're Russian or not has nothing to do with your attitudes to the EU, NATO, Europe and Russia.
Pro Russian rebellion went off without a hitch in Crimea where both the "yes" vote and proportion of ethnic non Russians is below 50%. The rebellion caught ground in Donetsk and Luhansk where "yes" vote was around 2/3 of the population and ethnic Ukrainians are less than 60% of the population. And the rebellion fizzled out in Odessa and Kharkiv in which the "yes" vote was also around 2/3 of the population but ethnic Ukrainians are over 60% of the population. And further in Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia where ethnic Ukrainians are over 70% of the population it never went beyond a few anti Maidan protests which is not even the same thing as being pro Russian.
Rebellions have as much to do with the successful strangling of said rebellion in the crib by the authorities - or the enabling of that rebellion with direct armed support (Russian troops on the streets assuring that Ukraine could do nothing to stop it) as it does with sentiment.
Anyway can you link to the polls you are referring to?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomani ... y-divided/
And your referenced poll:
For example a poll reported on
CNN in May 2014 states:
"More than half (56%) said they felt a stronger sense of loyalty to Europe than to Russia, while 19% said they felt more loyal to Russia and 22% said neither. Three percent said they didn't know."
So 19% feel more loyal to Russia than to Europe and what is the percentage of ethnic Russians according to 2001 census? 17.3% And this was before the war in the east heated up. I wonder what those 22% think about Russia now."
I'd imagine they'd feel much the same. The idea that there's been an outbreak of mass patriotism is laughable, given what we've seen.
Ukraine is basically a Hollywood caricature of the Soviet Union at this point - they just passed a law to allow for shooting of deserters, for fuck's sake. Gotta love those European values
But how does this poll contradict what I said? 56% of the population feeling one way and 41% not feeling that way = divided, plainly. This isn't just about loyalty to Russia or Europe.
Are there any numbers regarding the evasion? In either case what does being afraid to die have to do with wanting or not wanting something? Again I ask: does one have to be willing to die for something before you'd concede that they do,in fact, really want it?
Like I said, "they" don't speak for all Ukrainians, and never have. The poll you reference above bears that out amply, and it was also borne out in election after election in Ukraine prior.
Not right now. Right now Russia has a tactical advantage. US economy gives it a long term strategic advantage far beyond what happened in Cold War.
Advantage in what? A new Cold War? Perhaps. That's got absolutely nothing to do with the fate of Ukraine.
No chance of happening? Do you have a crystal ball? How much money US and Germany will end up spending on Ukraine is not something you can know unless you are a member of goverment of either country. My point was that US doesn't need to fix everything about Ukraine in other to help it or prop it up.
I don't need a crystal ball. Past behavior, geopolitical facts, and politics are all I need to know. In a world where the notion of bailing out their own members' massive debts is massively controversial, the idea that
Germany of all places is going to underwrite Ukraine in any significant fashion is simply laughable. And 'end up spending' doesn't even enter into it - Ukraine is at the point of economic collapse
now. How much longer do you think the Chocolate King is going to be in power? The IMF's patience for Ukraine alone is already running out, since their aid is tied to institution of 'reforms' that simply aren't happening.
How exactly did you get the impression that I was likening Ukraine's regime to either Afghanistan or North Vietnam? Those countries were examples of extremely weak and chaotic entities that were successfully propped up in a proxy war.
Because you think their experience is equivalent to the current geopolitical situation in Ukraine, and it isn't.
And I'm still baffled by your insistence that Ukraine is the South Vietnam even though it is the rebel held areas that need "Russification" of the conflict and would collapse instantly if not for heavy Russian support.
Ukraine would've collapsed months ago if not for the paltry few billions they've gotten from the IMF etc. So what? They're South Vietnam because they're fighting an internal rebellion with a corrupt, useless government and an utterly ineffective military - just like South Vietnam. They lost their chance at victory months ago and their military was broken in the attempt, due to Russia's intervention. Now the rebels are firmly established, and advancing. Kiev's cries of the Russian military being responsible for their 2015 defeats are simply false, even according to NATO. Do you think Hollande and Merkel are rushing to Kiev and Moscow because Kiev isn't in dire straits?
EDIT: and its worth pointing out that this isn't a situation where Russia wants to take over Kiev. All it needs to achieve its objective is to continue to destabilise Ukraine until Ukraine comes to the bargaining table with enough of what Russia wants. Donetsk and Luhansk regions combined accounted, before the war, for 15% of Ukraine's population, 16% of its GDP, 25% of its industrial output, and 27% of its exports. Without them, Ukraine is even worse off economically than it otherwise would be. American support is not going to work. Ukraine has to bargain.
November 2014 article, just as true now as it was then
Vice President Joe Biden traveled to Kiev last week for his third visit to Ukraine's capitalin the past seven months. He arrived bearing gifts: additional nonlethal military aid for the embattled Ukrainian government, including body armor, helmets, night-vision goggles, and countermortar radar. The first three of 20 promised countermortar radar systems were flown to Ukraine aboard a cargo plane accompanying Air Force Two the day the U.S. vice president arrived. Following the Nov. 3 separatist "elections"reports of Russian tanks rolling across the border, and with the Minsk cease-fire agreements in tatters and almost 1,000 dead in the past two and a half months, this quite literal "deliverable" for Biden's visit -- combined with some tough words in public for Russian President Vladimir Putin ("Do what you agreed to do, Mr. Putin") -- is certainly appropriate. But let's hope that the new kit and bravado gave Biden the public cover needed to make a far more important point to President Petro Poroshenko: Ukraine needs to make a deal with Russia if it wants to survive this crisis.
A political settlement would be far more important for Ukraine in the short to medium term than Western support -- even more important than the lethal aid that Sen. John McCain is demanding, let alone the helmets and body armor that Biden delivered. And while the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement might be critical for charting a reform path for Ukraine's future, the lack of a deal with Russia could easily render it irrelevant. That document was negotiated based on an assumption that economic ties with Russia would continue uninterrupted. Compensating Ukraine for the severing of those ties was not something Brussels ever contemplated.
Ukraine's economy is highly dependent on Russia across a range of sectors, a legacy of its key role in Soviet-era production chains. The most oft-discussed dependency is, of course, natural gas, the critical energy input for Ukrainian industry and the primary heating fuel for Ukrainians' homes. In 2013 alone, Ukraine imported 27 billion cubic meters of Russian gas and paid approximately $11 billion for it. And there is no feasible alternative to gas from Russia in the short to medium term -- both for heating Ukraine through the winter and for powering its major industrial enterprises in the metals and chemical industries. Even if all possible pipelines were operating at full capacity, reverse flow from Europe could provide at most 12 billion cubic meters. And the gas relationship with Moscow is also a key source of fiscal stability for Kiev. The Ukrainian coffers received approximately $3 billion to $3.1 billion from Gazprom in transit fees in 2013 -- a critical cash injection given the ballooning budget deficit and national debt.
But Ukraine's dependency on Russia is certainly not limited to gas imports: A third of its 2013 exports went to Russia (about the same as went to the European Union). That amount will certainly be lower in 2014, and the EU's share will certainly be higher as a result of Brussels's May 2014 decision to lower barriers to Ukrainian imports. However, the structure of Ukraine's exports to the two markets differs dramatically. Europe mostly buys metal ore, ferrous metals, grain, and other agricultural goods from Ukraine. Russia, by contrast, imports machinery, transport services, and industrial products -- i.e. value-added goods and services that tend to provide not only more jobs but also higher-paying ones.
Furthermore, millions of Ukrainians work in Russia and send money home to support their families. For 2013, the National Bank of Ukraine calculated remittances sent from Russia at $2.62 billion, but that number counts only formal bank transfers and money sent through international transfer services. Given the ease of crossing back and forth, presumably Ukrainians working in Russia bring home in cash or in goods at least as much if not more than what passes through the banking system. In other words, remittances from Russia were probably around 3 percent of GDP in 2013.
Putin has used the conflict in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions (aka the Donets Basin, or the Donbas) to put the screws on Kiev, and he could dial up the instability there at will. But the conflict in the Donbas also provides him with additional economic leverage. Before the conflict, the Donetsk and Luhansk regions combined accounted for 15 percent of Ukraine's population, 16 percent of its GDP, 25 percent of its industrial output, and 27 percent of its exports. In short, Ukraine without the Donbas would be in an even more unsustainable economic position than it already is today. And the only way for Ukraine to regain full control of it is through an agreement with Russia.
So, from an economic standpoint alone, a lasting political settlement between Moscow and Kiev is clearly necessary. So why isn't a process to make one happen even on the agenda?
On one level, the answer is straightforward:Key conditions needed for a productive conflict resolution process are utterly absent. These include some overlap in the parties' goals, allowing for a potential negotiated outcome that all sides can claim as a victory; a degree of flexibility in negotiating positions; an overriding shared interest in getting a deal; and domestic support for compromise.
Let's examine the parties' goals. There has been a lot of speculation about Russia's aims in Ukraine, ranging from accusations of new Anschluss to allegations of a manufactured war intended to boost domestic approval ratings. But actually, Moscow's objectives were made clear very early in the crisis: On March 15, the day before the so-called "referendum" in Crimea, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov handed U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry a draft text of a "Friends of Ukraine" international action plan. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs published the proposal online two days later. The key demands in the document are neutrality, nonexclusive geoeconomic arrangements, and decentralization of authority from Kiev to the regions.
What about the Ukrainian and Western goals? Nominally, the EU-U.S. strategic goal for Ukraine, shared by the current government in Kiev, is both straightforward and breathtakingly ambitious: to create a Western-oriented, Western-integrated, prosperous, territorially integral, secure, and democratic Ukraine.
This examination of the parties' goals paints a rather bleak picture. The goals of the parties to any future settlement to this crisis have only one thing in common: Achieving one side's goals necessarily entails undermining the other side's.
Meanwhile, Russian and Ukrainian leaders are preparing their publics for confrontation, not compromise. As Poroshenko recently tweeted, "We are prepared for a scenario of total war." Moreover, in Ukraine, compromise with Russia is nearly akin to treason. While talking to Kiev is not as taboo in Moscow, it would be politically impossible for any Russian government, and particularly Putin's government, to be seen to have "lost" in what is portrayed there as a battle for Ukraine.
If we imagine a negotiation between Putin and Poroshenko conducted in a political vacuum, without the historical legacy of the EU association process, the war, the Crimea annexation, etc., it is not inconceivable that they could reach a deal. The contours of the compromise would likely include: reaffirmation of the reality of Ukraine's nonalignment; mutually satisfactory trade arrangements among Russia, Ukraine, and the EU; implementation of a decentralization plan somewhat more ambitious than Poroshenko's June proposals, but significantly less far-reaching than Russia's March proposals; a return of full Ukrainian control over its border with Russia, perhaps with an international peacekeeping force on the ground in the Donbas; and so on.
The events of the past year, particularly Russia's brazen actions in Ukraine, make this scenario seem more like a fairy tale than a historical counterfactual. The problem for Ukraine and its Western partners is that the Kremlin does not need a deal to achieve its baseline objectives in this conflict. It could do so by bringing Ukraine to its knees economically or by continuing to sow instability in the east of the country, which effectively makes it impossible for the government in Kiev to pursue Putin's nightmare of a Ukraine in NATO and the EU. Moscow would prefer a negotiated settlement over these scenarios, if only because it would be far less costly. But it does not need one. The same cannot be said for Ukraine.
Notwithstanding Kiev's sometimes triumphalist rhetoric, Ukraine clearly needs a deal.
For Western policymakers, it is this factor -- Russia's strong bargaining position, relative to both Ukraine and the West -- that ultimately makes this crisis so different from others in the post-Cold War period. Never before have they faced a major nuclear power as an adversary in a regional dispute occurring in that power's backyard. In Kosovo, Russia was an opponent, but Kosovo barely registered in the hierarchy of Russian national security imperatives. Ukraine, by contrast, ranks just short of national survival. And eastern Ukraine is one of a few places beyond Russia's borders in which Moscow can deliver the assets required to sustain an insurgency. Even if it were to receive the much-ballyhooed lethal military assistance from the United States, Ukraine cannot defeat such an insurgency if Russia remains determined to prevent it from doing so.
In all the bad news about the breakdown of the Minsk agreements in recent weeks, it's easy to miss the silver lining. First, Putin and Poroshenko demonstrated that they could in fact negotiate a deal; apparently, they hammered out the parameters of what became the first Minsk agreement through direct talks. That two countries embroiled in a bitter conflict would have difficulty implementing their first attempt at a negotiated settlement should be no surprise; it would have been truly shocking if they had succeeded to go from war to partnership overnight. Second, despite all the public rancor, joint work on some Minsk-related activities continues: A Joint Center for Control and Coordination, manned by Russian and Ukrainian military officers, continues to demarcate the line of contact and facilitate the cease-fire.
The challenge for the West is to couple support for Ukraine with a diplomatic strategy to help Kiev build on the remnants of Minsk to achieve broader and better-functioning arrangements with Moscow in order to de-escalate this crisis. The United States should be encouraging and facilitating talks with just as much, if not more, gusto as it delivers military assistance. Constructive involvement and advice from senior U.S. diplomats might have led to a more robust first attempt than the Minsk agreements. But thus far Washington seems more interested in delivering body armor than deploying special envoys.
Showing up in Kiev with a public emphasis on encouraging Ukraine to make a new deal with Russia would have been politically impossible for the U.S. vice president. So let's hope that the radar airdrop gave Biden the leverage to be his usual blunt self during his closed-door meetings with Ukraine's leaders. For Ukraine to survive this crisis, it needs a settlement. There is no alternative.
