ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

also all these theories about long-term geopolitics might be moot when half of world's capitals are underwater and most countries can only feed a portion of their citizens.

no one really speculating more than 5 years old i don't think and i doubt half world's capitals will be underwater by then.

5 years out* i mean

like sanctions are starting to happen now, space between annexation of austria + invasion of poland was only like 1 year apart iirc,etc

Wouldn't the annexation of the Sudetenland be a closer parallel than the Anschluss, if we're looking to apply Godwin's Law?

China will have to choose sides, and they could very well choose to turn away from the west and more towards Russia as well.

i wonder why they would do this, when there are so many more people/potential trading partners among the countries now lined up in opposition to russian expansionism. the USA alone has more people and a stronger economy, add to that the EU, much of Asia e.g. Japan, Brazil (who I also can't imagine siding w/ Russia over US/Europe)...

― espring (amateurist), 20. marts 2014 02:12 (14 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well, first of all, China will apparantly by Russia's gas-leverances which would have gone to the West. Also, China and Russia walk hand in hand on most international questions, on Libya, Syria, etc. So if sanctions escalate, they would prob rather have a political partner than economical? Also, China, like Russia, will have to deal with rising, demanding middle class, if they integrate further with the west.

good morning moldova!

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26662721

can anyone here recommend a good book on the fall of the Soviet Union, and the formation of the independent nations?

like, I was in hs when it happened but didn't really understand what was going on. And now I read about say Moldova and its conflicts at the time, and I don't remember anything about that

I think this is supposed to be good but I haven't read it -

http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347735474l/295847.jpg

9780804722476

what is that number is that a code

da da plan is go roll the tanks

isbn?

Transdniestr is a really weird place. In theory it's a separatist region hostile to Moldovan rule but it's home of Moldova's biggest football team and the national side plays lots of its matches there. It's effectively a corporate state run by the Sheriff Company.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheriff_(company)

Slightly surprised that they want to be part of a country that might actually scrutinise them.

Tbh, I've always thought that Transdnistr joining Russia and Moldova joining Romania might be a win-win for everyone. I have a lot of affection for the place but it's the least functional country in Europe by a million miles and probably needs the EU to sort it out. Not sure who would get Gagauzia, probably Russia.

wonder what the kurds think about all this, or the baloch. or the ghosts of garibaldi and the '48ers... Ethnic Nationalism, Pretty Weird When You Think About It.

he has capped the power of the oligarchs

Sharivari, just asking---If Putin has done this, then how come the U.S. slapped asset friezes on four businessmen linked closely to Putin as well as a Russian bank that provides them support

Isn't he now seeking more money from the wealthy, only because of the impending sanctions?

russia handed out targeted sanctions on 'harry reed' and 'john beyner'

http://www.nndb.com/people/020/000043888/john-byner.jpg

Sharivari, just asking---If Putin has done this, then how come the U.S. slapped asset friezes on four businessmen linked closely to Putin as well as a Russian bank that provides them support

The oligarchs are still hugely powerful and, in many cases, very closely tied to Putin but it's not the same situation you had back when Berezovsky was pretty much able to decide who would lead Russia and government policy was largely decided on what worked best for a small cabal of gangsters. Putin used the oligarchs to get into office but the Yukos affair was the turning point when political power reasserted its dominance over capital.

Bear in mind under Yeltsin the oligarchs were able to engineer a situation in which the state effectively paid them for taking away assets worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

I think it's difficult to judge Putin's performance as a leader until we have some historical perspective. One big risk is that by centralizing power and weakening democratic institutions with no clear successor he may be setting the country up for someone much less talented and/or more corrupt following him and undoing whatever good the stability of his rule has provided.

I'm not even sure he has actually weakened democratic institutions - they were in pieces when he took over - but yes it's never good when that kind of authoritarianism becomes the long term norm (or when it becomes this popular).

obama threatens putin that if he invades more of southern or eastern ukraine there will be more sanctions. honestly, i was a huge fan of obama when i voted for him, partially bc i thought he made a lot of sense on foreign affairs, but this is some weak-chin bullshit. i understand it's probably not a good idea to do more but why not just keep his mouth shut instead of making these empty threats that i can't imagine impress putin? like maybe he could be like "we're letting our allies in europe take the lead on this one." instead of OH HORRORS sanctions???

also lol:

European leaders will meet on Thursday in Brussels at an emergency summit to wrestle with the dilemma of what to do about Vladimir Putin. The EU described the Russian seizure of Crimea this week as "an act of aggression" – but it does not know how to respond.

A crisis that started with an EU summit fiasco three months ago may reach its climax on Thursday with an EU summit failure as Putin's short-term hard power collides with European longer-term soft power and leaves the EU looking weak and feckless.

The Italians and the French do not want to punish Putin. The Swedes and the east Europeans take a hard line. The British government is worried about the impact on the City of London and losing the capital's big-spending oligarchs. German industry is lobbying strongly against imposing sanctions on Russia.

And while Washington talks of isolating Russia because of Ukraine, Berlin is saying the opposite, stressing engagement and keeping channels open to the Kremlin.

we don't even have fucking support for our policy towards putin from the EU ffs

what the fuck do you expect? the eu has to live with russia nextdoor and can't afford to alienate it, russia knows this and europe knows it

i expect that if you can't even get EU to agree to sanctions then just keep your fucking mouth shut mr. leader of the free world + stop these empty threats

Yeah, let Europe deal with this. Or not.

america and its european fellow travellers are culpable in some measure for encouraging ukraine's aspirations towards the eu and especially nato, which was never happening but encouraged russian revanchist planning as soon as it saw its military interests in crimea threatened

and yeah for the cheap seats, this isn't to exculpate russian aggression, whatever

EU has imposed almost as many sanctions as US so far. And also, the countries are making an effort to find their gas elsewhere, which would be a more damaging blow to Russia's economy than anything sanctions could do, I think.

europe just doesn't care enough about ukraine's sovereignty or its westernizing aspirations and is beholden to russia, america is less beholden but absent a few subnormal malcontents like mccain cares even less about ukraine, none of them are prepared to risk anything substantial in defending its integrity, so russia will always get what it wants when it cares exceedingly about ukraine in its paranoid, anachronistic great-power way and is prepared to use crude and illicit tactics

the crimean annexation might have been avoided if two decades of western policy towards the ukraine more reflected the degree to which its autonomy was valued, if a more transparent approach had been taken instead of bien pensant warm words and empty solicitations that accelerated internal conflict and now territorial dissolution

more /accurately/ reflected

i expect that if you can't even get EU to agree to sanctions then just keep your fucking mouth shut mr. leader of the free world + stop these empty threats

― Mordy , Thursday, 20 March 2014 21:57 (27 minutes ago)

america can try, it shouldn't be lamented for that, but ultimately it resolves to a sort of phatic shunning gesture -- russia as a deplorable, atavistic, violent drunkard unbecoming of the liberal order of nations, it's a sort of diplomatic fiction in defiance of the reality that russia isn't weakened at all, any more than china is when its colonial policy in tibet or turkestan is criticized by western leaders

something i was thinking about today (tho in an unrelated fp topic!) was that this discursive "concern trolling" is super prevalent in geopolitical conflict/diplomacy. it's not enough that we disapprove that russia is annexing Crimea, but that we let them know that we think this is a really poor idea for them, and they're overextending, and this will have repercussions (which of course it surely will, but everything has repercussions including the choice not to act at all in any given scenario). thank god for contemporary trolling studies for helping me understand this prolific geopolitical trope.

Transdniestr is a really weird place. In theory it's a separatist region hostile to Moldovan rule but it's home of Moldova's biggest football team and the national side plays lots of its matches there. It's effectively a corporate state run by the Sheriff Company.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheriff_(company)

Slightly surprised that they want to be part of a country that might actually scrutinise them.

― Yuri Bashment (ShariVari), Thursday, March 20, 2014 1:14 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's also non-contiguous with russia, although by sea it is not far from crimean naval base. but russian annexing a non-contiguous territory that shares most of its border with western ukraine would definitely give people bigger heebie-jeebies.

i mean hell take finland why don't they

just imagine if there were a noncontiguous russian territory adjoining poland

oh yeah, there is that.

Kaliningrad is non-contiguous too, but it does make things more complicated. Transdniestr has been outside of Moldovan control for so long it's arguably a slightly different situation though. On the other hand, Moldova is broadly aligned with Russia on a lot of stuff, by necessity if not inclination. It wouldn't surprise me if Russia turned down the offer as a reward for Moldova joining the customs union.

Xps, obvs, as point has been made.

this is fucked up, but the macro at the end is both OTM and pretty funny

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/ukrainian-nationalists-hand-russians-propaganda-coup-with-video-of-assault/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

also the journalist who tweeted that is kind of foxy

http://impmagination.com/i/people/dt/dt_12.jpg

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-26663168

http://i.imgur.com/qcSrox7.png

Lol, so the Danish newspapers are checking how a trade-war with Russia would impact Danish export, consisting mainly of pork. And the truth is, not much at the moment, since Russia is already boycutting Danish pork, as they claim to have found infected pork from Latvia... Basically, they were already shitting on international agreements when they feel like it.

Bad news for Lego. I think they do about $400m of business there!

A drop in the ocean, honestly... Carlsberg is probably more in trouble, they were apparantly focusing especially on the territory. But really, it's only the pork-export which would harm the Danish economy as a whole.

so some of my family from ukraine is apparently over at my parent's house right now. i hadn't heard they were coming before today but i don't think it's like a refugee sitch - maybe an impromptu visit? idk. i'll report back w/ deets when i get them.

Hey Mordy, you do recognize that if Obama says nothing he will be criticized as weak; and if he imposes sanctions (with the US having less influence there than Europe) he will also be criticized.

So news is that anti-semitism, despite public protestations from Yaakov Dov Bleich, is common. A friend who built an orphanage for Jewish kids and a Jewish museum in Kryvyi Rih, had some windows broken and he's now thinking of immigrating to Germany (always lol when former Soviet-bloc Jews decide the safest place to go is Germany). Otherwise they are very concerned - upset about the government shooting protestors, uncertain about the future. Lots of foreboding talk. No plans to becomes emigrate yet from my family...

For now, the measures target Putin’s inner circle and stop well short of the kind of sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy. Those would be triggered only by a wider military incursion, and Russian troops remain massed on Ukraine’s eastern and southern borders.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/putin-signs-bill-completing-annexation-of-crimea-as-sanctions-take-hold/2014/03/21/ef038a44-b0f3-11e3-a49e-76adc9210f19_story.html?hpid=z1

Unmentioned in this thread, is that most supply to the current 20,000 NATO ISAF forces in Afghanistan passes over Russian roads or through Russian airspace. And Russia offers the only current manned flights to ISS.

Severe sanctions are a non-starter. And Washington's grand strategy of encirclement of a once great superpower, like that of a cornered animal, was always likely to have its limits.

My hope is that Ukraine has its own belated Velvet Divorce through popular referendums, as the current borders of Ukraine only ensures perpetual conflict between West and East Ukraine, and broken nationalist party politics.

funny thing, I corresponded w/ a woman from a state film organization in kyiv today, name sounded familiar and turns out she moonlights as a left-libertarian/anarchist activist-intellectual and wrote one of the smarter pieces on the varying ideologies in the protest movement and what goals/ideas they had in common.