? זאָג, פון אוקראינע װאס זיינט איר אװעק —

[sovay]

Quite apart from events on the world stage, every day this week has contained some additional stressor, of which the latest example was spatch needing to spend the day at the ER for what turned out to be diverticulitis. He is home now with antibiotics and enjoying some well-deserved soup. My ability to do very much this week beyond work has been somewhat frustrated. Someday, statistically, someone I care for or even just know socially will catch a break and it will be awesome.

In terms of ongoing resources for Ukaine, Razom seems to have the bases covered. I found myself saying elsenet that I don't think I'm old enough to blame it on the failure of historical memory, but I keep catching takes from people who seem to have forgotten that the Yugoslav Wars—Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo—even happened and it is very strange. I understand the significance of the eight-decade mark since one stable sovereign nation in Europe invaded another. But it's not as though we haven't seen sieges and airstrikes in places that didn't look sufficiently (there are not enough scare quotes in the world) foreign as to feel safely distant since then.

Courtesy of a friend who is not on DW: mir zaynen do, af Ukraynish.

Comments

[davidgillon]

I grew up in the Cold War, and decided on a career in defence because of it. Of course the Cold War promptly fizzled out four years later, so that's probably an argument against letting geo-politics drive career choices, but it does give me a framework for processing what's going on, and where politics are likely to go from here. But we've got people well into their 30s who don't remember the Cold War and for whom the Balkan conflicts occurred in their early childhood, so they don't really have experience of living normal life under a threat of war.

I see on that note that Putin has just succeeded in doing what Trump signally failed to do and persuaded the German government to immediately increase defence spending to the NATO target of 2% of GDP from its current 1.5% (and Schulz was talking about making continuing that commitment part of German constitutional law rather than a political decision). For reference the NATO target during the Cold War was 4%, but it tended to be only the US and UK who met that, most of the European NATO defence budgets were typically in the 3% range if memory serves. In fact I just checked and West Germany's defence budget dipped below 3% from 1985. OTOH West Germany on somewhere just under 3% had a tremendously capable military. I think a lot of defence budgets will be getting emergency supplements this month.

One thing that argues against things becoming a direct Cold War analogy is that the Russian military is a fraction of the size it used to be. Deploying 150,000 troops to attack Ukraine has seen them stripping troops from at least as far away as the Finnish border (discussed by a Finnish defence blogger here: https://corporalfrisk.com/2022/02/26/a-modest-proposal/ - scroll down to the picture of a tank for that section of the piece). There have also been reports that Putin asked Kazakhstan for troops and was turned down, which suggests the Russians know they need more men - you normally want a three to one superiority on the attack, more against prepared defences, many times more for attacking a defended city, and they're closer to one to one with respect to Ukraine. If Russia struggles to attack Ukraine after months of preparation then their general staff is going to recognise the impossibility of a general attack on NATO along the whole inter-bloc border, even if Putin doesn't.

Which won't stop people being concerned and worried. I spoke to my Polish neighbour earlier and he was worried about his parents, who live in eastern Poland about 90km from the Russian border. The concern for NATO is more probably for the Baltics, which Putin undoubtedly wants back in the Russian fold and which don't have huge militaries, but NATO has had forward-deployed troops from the major powers in the Baltics to discourage that for years.

And speaking of the Baltics, Latvians gathered outside the Russian Embassy in Riga to sing the Ukrainian national anthem at it https://twitter.com/NaomiOhReally/status/1497343157973012483

[moon_custafer]

This is probably just my personal obsessions talking, but the war this is beginning to remind me of is not WWII or the Cold War, but the Russian-Japanese War at the dawn of the 20th century, which ultimately ended up showing the cracks in the Tsarist regime (and arguably was the domino that triggered a lot of the better-known subsequent conflicts, so maybe let’s hope I’m wrong).

[sovay]

the Russian-Japanese War at the dawn of the 20th century, which ultimately ended up showing the cracks in the Tsarist regime

On the theory of rhyming rather than repeating, we could have the regime crack without the subsequent aftershocks. .דאַלוי סאַמעדערזשאַוויעץ וו׳ראַסיי

[moon_custafer]

From your lips to God’s ears.

The other analogy, one that struck me tonight on my way home, is one I’d hesitate to air on someplace like Twitter because people would think I’m being flippant— but I trust people here to understand that when I suggest life is currently imitating Duck Soup (1933), I am fully aware of how terrifying that scenario is.

[davidgillon]

Interesting. I might suggest the Winter War vs Finland as an alternative, which is another case of Russia invading a neighbouring country after making unreasonable demands and finding the opposition was a lot stronger than it expected.

[moon_custafer]

The worrying thing about that comparison is that despite Finland punching well above their weight class, they still weren’t in Russia’s weight class.

I think the only hope here is that Putin’s willingness to sacrifice as many Russians as it takes won’t fly, given that they’re invading their neighbours as opposed to defending themselves against Hitler or Napoleon.

[davidgillon]

That's a fair point on Finland.

And an interesting thought on Russian willingness to die in expansionary wars. Wasn't an awful lot of the historic eastward expansion done using the Cossacks rather than Russian regulars?

[sovay]

If Russia struggles to attack Ukraine after months of preparation then their general staff is going to recognise the impossibility of a general attack on NATO along the whole inter-bloc border, even if Putin doesn't.

What result does this produce?

(I am not ignoring the rest of the information contained in your comment; much of my reaction to it is filed under the way I have been going around astonished by the international support for Ukraine. Not on the ground, by governments. After the Crimea in 2014, I expected nothing. I certainly didn't expect the ruble to plummet toward toilet paper and Turkey to close the straits.)

[edit] This thread made me think of you.

[davidgillon]

If Putin asks his military to do something they know is impossible to win, and launch a conventional attack against NATO, then things become very scarily interesting. They have three options: try to do what he demands, try to change what he demands, or try to replace him.

The first is incredibly dangerous, because it risks WWIII and escalating into a strategic nuclear exchange because the conventional attack will fail. Russian officers are as capable of recognising this as anyone, and commanders in the Strategic Rocket Forces have shown that they are willing to hesitate of their own initiative when faced with an apparent nuclear threat, so blind obedience isn't a given.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident

Trying to change his demands depends on how much access the military have at court, and the Defence Minister, Sergei Shoigu is a Putin insider rather than an military figure, so I'm not sure how much chance it has in the court of yes-men he's surrounded himself with.

Trying to replace Putin is almost as scary as the first scenario, because it could end up in a civil war in a nuclear armed state. Which probably means Putin would have to be killed as part of the plot rather than deposed because they can't afford to have him trying to rally support from other elements of the military. I think we have to look at the way he's systematically eliminated opposition leaders as indicating this scenario makes him lose sleep at night. The key question becomes just how loyal is the military? Particularly the commanders of the Tamanskaya Guards Division (effectively the Russian Praetorian Guard, and which played a significant role in the 1991 coup attempt and the 1993 White House crisis), and the airborne forces. If discontent spreads to the people, then that could provide the pretext for action, but I have no idea who might emerge as a leader.

And those three options are why I think it's important NATO and the EU demonstrate as resolute a reaction as possible to what's happening now, so that even if Putin does win in the Ukraine he hesitates to take on NATO directly.