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OT: World Politics

WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou said:

View: https://bsky.app/profile/timothysnyder.bsky.social/post/3lbsdyvbt422l
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Yup. This is the irony behind the "we must avoid WW3" people who are trying to shut down assistance to Ukraine. Ukraine fighting is making WW3 less likely, not more likely. If the proposed "peace deal" I see muppets punting around comes to pass (borders solidified where they are....with Ukraine giving back Kursk and getting nothing in return because reasons) Putin is going to want to turn around as soon as he's able to and take a run at Odessa and Moldova in the west, and the Baltics in the north within 5 years. It's a legacy play for Putin. He wants to be the one who reunited Novorossiya in the south, and reclaimed the Baltics to restore parts of the soviet union. He will challenge article 5 at some point if given the opportunity. The nuclear sabre rattling is his best path to victory in Ukraine by scaring away robust assistance, he has no interest in being suicidal. If Russia loses, there will be some sort of messy regime change. If Russia wins, they'll be fighting Finland, Poland, and what's left of Ukraine all over again in a few years.
 
Kinda a given that Putin’s going to challenge article 5 at some point in Trump’s second term, no? Hell, Trump will probably pull the USA out of NATO first to clear the path.

Only question for me is where it’ll be. Best bet is that he’ll try to create another “land bridge” by taking a bite out of Lithuania along the Suwalki gap, in order to link back up with Kaliningrad.
 
LeafGm said:
Kinda a given that Putin’s going to challenge article 5 at some point in Trump’s second term, no? Hell, Trump will probably pull the USA out of NATO first to clear the path.

Only question for me is where it’ll be. Best bet is that he’ll try to create another “land bridge” by taking a bite out of Lithuania along the Suwalki gap, in order to link back up with Kaliningrad.
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That seems the obvious move but I don't think that's the one tbh. I think Poland immediately declares war if Russia invades Lithuania and by like 2026-27 I wouldn't bet against Poland handing them their ass. Poland should have 500 MLRS/HIMARS launchers by then (Ukraine capped out at 64 in total), they'll have over 60 F 35's by then and 50 F-16's. Short of Russia finally figuring out how to mass produce Felon's, they're not going to have control of airspace adjacent to the Suwalki gap. IMO they'll do something more cheeky and attack Norway.

Here:

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Remote, hard to defend. Low risk, high reward because the reward isn't actually about capturing something physically valuable. Failure to react with article 5 would lead to NATO political infighting, which is the bigger short to medium goal than actually claiming territory from a NATO country imo. If NATO actually goes through with article 5, Russia can trade a few punches, take a bloody nose and back away.

Creating the novorossiya land bridge from moldova right to Russia proper is a way bigger territorial goal but doesn't require testing NATO. Trying to take the Suwalki gap will require a fight, maybe a war. Border incursions with the Finns would be harder logistically to manage for the Russians than for the Finns. The Finn-Russian border is sparsely populated with few roads on the Russian side but a fairly extensive rural road network on the Finnish side. Invading Latvia or Estonia probably draws a similar reaction from Poland-Finland-Sweden as invading Lithuania would.
 
MindzEye said:
That seems the obvious move but I don't think that's the one tbh. I think Poland immediately declares war if Russia invades Lithuania and by like 2026-27 I wouldn't bet against Poland handing them their ass. Poland should have 500 MLRS/HIMARS launchers by then (Ukraine capped out at 64 in total), they'll have over 60 F 35's by then and 50 F-16's. Short of Russia finally figuring out how to mass produce Felon's, they're not going to have control of airspace adjacent to the Suwalki gap. IMO they'll do something more cheeky and attack Norway.

Here:

View attachment 23121


Remote, hard to defend. Low risk, high reward because the reward isn't actually about capturing something physically valuable. Failure to react with article 5 would lead to NATO political infighting, which is the bigger short to medium goal than actually claiming territory from a NATO country imo. If NATO actually goes through with article 5, Russia can trade a few punches, take a bloody nose and back away.

Creating the novorossiya land bridge from moldova right to Russia proper is a way bigger territorial goal but doesn't require testing NATO. Trying to take the Suwalki gap will require a fight, maybe a war. Border incursions with the Finns would be harder logistically to manage for the Russians than for the Finns. The Finn-Russian border is sparsely populated with few roads on the Russian side but a fairly extensive rural road network on the Finnish side. Invading Latvia or Estonia probably draws a similar reaction from Poland-Finland-Sweden as invading Lithuania would.
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If the Russians insist on fucking with countries that already have sound historical reasons for wanting to fight them to the death, they couldn't have chosen any better than Ukraine and Poland.
 
Wayward DP said:
One of Obama’s largest failures. That, and Syria
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Yeah, pretty embarrassing how much plausible deniability Obama and the West in general were willing to grant to Putin’s little green men, “pro-Russian separatists” and independent “peoples republics” in Eastern Ukraine back in 2014.

Instead of flatly calling it out as and treating it like the blatant Russian invasion that it was. And relying entirely on sanctions, which have proven time and time again to be completely fucking useless.

That failure just emboldened Putin to take the next step and to not even bother with any subterfuge besides the lame “De-Nazification” justification for internal Russian consumption and for tankies in the West.
 
Europe had already started planning for a Trump transition prior to the election. I remember reading months ago that England and Germany signed a reciprocity agreement to go to war if either country was attacked. Various side-deals like this have or are in the process of being made. Russia will gamble that NATO wont risk going to war if "only" Lithuania is attacked. This was one of the gambles that Hitler took prior to the start of WWII where countries had signed similar reciprocity agreements. In the end, Europe let smaller countries be sacrificed in order to avoid war and the rest is history.

Whether NATO decides to wake up to existential threats to its eastern borders will remain to be seen. Hopefully they will have learned the errors made prior to 1939 and not let those errors be repeated. This same game is being played out in Ukraine right now although Ukraine did not have similar pacts with other countries that Europe had (and dismissed) in the lead up to WWII.

NATO hasn't taken itself very seriously over the last 20 years though, lets be honest. This is also one of the reasons why Putin felt emboldened in 2014 and still does to this very day.
 
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MindzEye said:
That seems the obvious move but I don't think that's the one tbh. I think Poland immediately declares war if Russia invades Lithuania and by like 2026-27 I wouldn't bet against Poland handing them their ass. Poland should have 500 MLRS/HIMARS launchers by then (Ukraine capped out at 64 in total), they'll have over 60 F 35's by then and 50 F-16's. Short of Russia finally figuring out how to mass produce Felon's, they're not going to have control of airspace adjacent to the Suwalki gap. IMO they'll do something more cheeky and attack Norway.

Here:

View attachment 23121


Remote, hard to defend. Low risk, high reward because the reward isn't actually about capturing something physically valuable. Failure to react with article 5 would lead to NATO political infighting, which is the bigger short to medium goal than actually claiming territory from a NATO country imo. If NATO actually goes through with article 5, Russia can trade a few punches, take a bloody nose and back away.

Creating the novorossiya land bridge from moldova right to Russia proper is a way bigger territorial goal but doesn't require testing NATO. Trying to take the Suwalki gap will require a fight, maybe a war. Border incursions with the Finns would be harder logistically to manage for the Russians than for the Finns. The Finn-Russian border is sparsely populated with few roads on the Russian side but a fairly extensive rural road network on the Finnish side. Invading Latvia or Estonia probably draws a similar reaction from Poland-Finland-Sweden as invading Lithuania would.
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I suppose we’ll see. But Putin isn’t getting any younger, and I can’t see him using the gift that is a second Trump term to grab hold of a few Norwegian rocks up on the arctic circle.

I think the grand, overarching goal of the remainder of his life (beyond living like an emperor, holding onto power and continuing to enrich himself) is to establish a legacy as the Russian Czar who re-conquered as many key, erstwhile pieces of Imperial Russia/“The Russian world” as possible.

Destroying NATO was a key goal as well, yes, but Trump is going to finish that job for him now. Likely by pulling out of the alliance, and also by the very fact that the American public gave him a second term, destroying any hope of America being a reliable international ally going forward.

So going forward, I think territorially, that leaves Putin’s focus on:

  • Holding his conquered Ukrainian territory
  • Increasingly subsuming the Belarusian state into his Imperial Russia
  • Creating a land bridge to Kaliningrad and thereby also severing the land connection between Europe & the Baltic states
  • If there’s some material change of circumstance that breaks the current stalemate, continue to push through and along the Southern Ukrainian coast until Kherson & Odessa are taken, and they link up with Transnistria
  • More long-term: either formally invading, re-taking and annexing the Baltic states. Or using hybrid warfare to eventually establish pro-Russian puppet regimes in the countries.

As for Poland, sure, they probably rattle their sabre if Russia invades Lithuania. But if they no longer have the backing of the United States & NATO and Russia doesn’t cross their border, I bet they ultimately sit back and don’t do anything.
 
LeafGm said:
I suppose we’ll see. But Putin isn’t getting any younger, and I can’t see him using the gift that is a second Trump term to grab hold of a few Norwegian rocks up on the arctic circle.
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Fair, but the utility of breaking faith among NATO countries is worth a lot more than the norwegian rocks and doing it in a low risk way would be very 2014 Crimea of him.

LeafGm said:
I think the grand, overarching goal of the remainder of his life (beyond living like an emperor, holding onto power and continuing to enrich himself) is to establish a legacy as the Russian Czar who re-conquered as many key, erstwhile pieces of Imperial Russia/“The Russian world” as possible.

Destroying NATO was a key goal as well, yes, but Trump is going to finish that job for him now. Likely by pulling out of the alliance, and also by the very fact that the American public gave him a second term, destroying any hope of America being a reliable international ally going forward.
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I agree with the 1st but less with the 2nd regarding NATO being destroyed. Even if the US left, it's still a formidable coalition if it sticks together and honours the agreement.

LeafGm said:
As for Poland, sure, they probably rattle their sabre if Russia invades Lithuania. But if they no longer have the backing of the United States & NATO and Russia doesn’t cross their border, I bet they ultimately sit back and don’t do anything.
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Hard disagree here. Recent polls have 50% of Poles saying that a Russian attack on Poland in the future is likely or highly likely. Polish/Ukraine relations are pretty complicated due to a variety of historical and economic factors. But Polish/Lithuanian relations aren't. Most of the antipathy towards Ukraine inside of Poland comes from the preferential treatment Ukrainian grain and refugees have received since the start of the war and the two countries never really got along well (a big chunk of western Ukraine including Lviv was given to it when at Poland's expense in the 40's, there is still some bitterness about that).

Poland and Lithuania though have been slowly coming together in joint economic and defence development for ~30 years now. Both EU members, both NATO members and the Polish aren't stupid enough to wait for Russia to pick off all of their neighbours while assuming they're not on the menu eventually. They'll scrap over the Suwalki gap, they've already got agreements in place with Lithuania on how it will be defended, rules when either nation can move troops across each other's borders (the Orsha agreement), etc. They've been doing joint exercises in the Suwalki for a few years now. Within a handful of years the Polish military is going to be pretty fucking terrifying, the window to take the suwalki gap might be closed already.
 
BBC union calls on Jewish employees to wear Palestinian colours

"Several Jewish journalists at the BBC have quit their union after it called on members to wear clothes in Palestinian colors or a keffiyeh as part of a Day of Action for Palestine, the UK’s Jewish News reports.

Several members of the National Union of Journalists felt that the call crossed the line in violating the BBC’s neutrality.

One BBC staffer tells the Times, “BBC journalists, who pride themselves on impartiality and who fought to keep their NUJ free of politics, are being encouraged to break the BBC’s editorial guidelines by supporting a political cause.”
 
Yes sir the nukes are ready. Trust me i am very good at my job and not at all corrupt.


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