Russian invasion of Ukraine

This is also part of the difference, from Wikipedia

In 1996, during the Clinton Administration, the governments of the U.S. and Iran reached a settlement at the International Court of Justice, which included the statement "... the United States recognized the aerial incident of 3 July 1988 as a terrible human tragedy and expressed deep regret over the loss of lives caused by the incident ..."[15] As part of the settlement, even though the U.S. government did not admit legal liability or formally apologize to Iran, it agreed to pay US$61.8 million on an ex gratia basis in compensation to the families of the Iranian victims.[16]

8 years later they failed to admit liability and paid 213k per person. The main difference is the cash.

Brilliant interview with Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld on the real state of Russia's economy. The IMF has predicted that Russia's economy will grow slightly this year. Why? Because Putin says so. Like everything else in Russia the numbers are fake. There is no reliable financial data coming out of Russia whatsoever. The real financial situation is dire. Russia is even losing money on oil exports.

https://youtu.be/QU0resswOds

There were two people from Newcastle on the plane. They were both die hard Newcastle United fans and travelled to every single match. At the time they were flying to Australia to watch the toon play in some pre-season friendlies.

I remember seeing them both in London away ends. Both were very distinctive looking. One was nicknamed the undertaker because he always used to wear a spooky suit, trench coat and dour hat.

Yep there’d be a minutes applause at the 17th minute at every game for quite a long time. Even if you were just watching at the pub with other Newcastle fans we’d all start clapping.

More focus on Transnistria it seems. Last year the expectation was a series of coordinated pincer attacks cutting off Kyiv, Eastern Ukraine, the south coast, and eventually bringing in Moldova/Transnistria. Moldovans would be wise to have crisis plans ready now.

I was very positive about it, we've got one in Lithuania as well. But when I went to see it, there was some guy lecturing everyone that our defence minister is pathological liar and the tank itself might be a loss from Ukraine side because they use the same equipment from soviet era.

Read more stories about people bringing flowers to those tanks and other minor provocations so maybe this idea is not as good as it looked...

Well, that sucks, but for action there is always an opposite reaction. Sometimes it is better that the loonies are lured out of the closet. In civil society we can't just oust them, but at least we can shame them publicly. Maybe they will eventually take the hint and get with the program.

BTW. I was just watching this Bald and bankrupt
traveller dude on Youtube. Kind of interesting to see how things were just before the war in Bachmut. I did not know the name had a history of its own.

Bald and Bankrupt is a rather dubious character https://teddit.net/r/BaldAndBaldrDossier/comments/judnlm/is_bald_bankrupt_really_a_sex_tourist_and_a/

Yeah, I had a hunch there is something odd about him. Anyways I think the best part about the videos are the interactions with the taxi drivers and other locals. You get that sense that things are not quite so simple in the border areas where for generations there was so much interaction. There are always some hot heads convoluting things and some locals that only care that there is minimum hazzle interacting with relatives across the border.

Man, this triggers me much

https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1629522228982185985

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This is a really good (long) read

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/02/24/russia-ukraine-war-oral-history-00083757

It's not only propaganda, centuries of Russian geopolitics have been based on controlling a large enough area of the Northern European Steppe such that the avenues for largescale movement of armies into their territory is constrained by mountain ranges, rivers, etc. Basically, they want to limit the routes of tanks into Russia to topographical bottlenecks that they can easily plug. It sounds daft and may well be daft, but it's not entirely uninformed by history. When you understand that this is a key part of the Russian perspective, you see why NATO expansion into former Warsaw Pact countries is interpreted as aggression - the available routes for forces to enter Russia have become thousands of kilometers wide, Belarus is at risk of becoming an indefensible salient, etc. I'm not saying this is a correct or helpful way to view the world, because overall we will not progress by treating the planet like a giant game of Risk. However it does render some of the batshit comprehensible.

Imagine how much of this shit could be avoided if people didn't get so excited about Clausewitz.

There's a chapter on that in Prisoners of Geography (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_of_Geography)

The whole thing relies on the Russian populace believing that they have anything we want on their land and that the west hasn't learned that land invasions of Russia are stupid.

Interesting!

So with this logic, they won't be happy until they border Germany, Austria and Italy / Slovenia?

I'm certainly not suggesting that this idea excuses the invasion, the constant interference in the politics of neighbours, etc. It would be far more sensible for Russia to adapt to a new position in the world, like a post-Imperial Britain has been trying to do for the last 70-80 years or so.

They could chill the fuck out and rake in billions in gas money?

They have overland access to the European and Chinese markets, plus gas reserves. The poverty of the average Russian is a sign of appalling kleptocracy and mismanagement.

the Russian populace believing that they have anything we want on their land

The irony is that their natural resources are cheaper to us when they are in Russian hands and therefore extracted by workers earning appallingly low Russian wages. Compared to what it would cost us if the EU invaded and annexed them somehow and ended up having to pay Russian miners and oil field workers the going rate over here.

You are forgetting Russian inefficiency. It costs OPEC nations $20-25 per barrel to extract oil. It costs Russia ~$45 because of antiquated technology and corruption.

Kleptocracy and mismanagement is not a bug...it's a feature.

Yeah...that's not how imperialism works. I'm not suggesting that the EU or NATO is about to invade Russia, but if some state did, the last thing they would do is raise wages.

...The West could be perceived as slow to adopt this lesson, given the number of attempts in the last few centuries. The problem for Russia is that even spectacularly unsuccessful invasions have been extremely damaging and costly to defend. It seems an outmoded way of thinking though, to me - but perhaps this 19th century mindset informs the perspective of the Russian leadership?

Seeking stable, secure borders is a really typical behaviour of land empires, so they probably think that would make them happy. I doubt it would, and often such expansionism leads to overstretched militaries and then collapse.

Invasions of Russia were not because West wanted to invade East, but because couple of lunatics wanted to control the whole world and Russia was perceived as an obstruction to that. Your theory of West not learning enough from invading Russia could also be reversed back. Russia should really learn from invading other countries. Starting from Korea some 100 years ago, through Afghanistan etc. I have one word for the ^. Paranoia.