Ukraine and the perils of lack of commitment

Putin wants all of it, but the Western part doesn’t want to go.

I’m not so sure Putin “wants” all of Ukraine, or any part of it other than the seaports, but he is not about to allow NATO to have any part of it. He doesn’t bloviate about “red lines,” but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have them.

Putin most assuredly does not want Ukraine; just an independent neighbor. Putin, it would seem, is one of the only honest brokers in this stupid play by the U.S.

All it would take is a little research to understand their historic relationship. Ignorance is driving this insanity; ignorance of culture, language, religion, and regional politics.
America is run by stupid children playing with powerful toys they don’t understand.

Oh, we’re deleting comments now? From a known poster/not a troll?
While I would, and have, put it differently, it’s still a relevant point, no?

@ Ian

Careful there; don’t hurt yourself.
I and many others have lauded your liberal censorship policies. Yes, things get nasty at times; but over the years, I have seen that they work things out in the end.
Censorship is a road unseen with destinations unknown; careful there…

Stirling is correct. By “all” Putin wants a solidly aligned eastern Ukraine and a failed state Western Ukraine that is a net drain on the West and Nato rather than a benefit. There is neither a need nor a desire in the modern version of power politics to blatantly show your hand by directly annexing territory. This is why the need for “hidden in plain site” military forces helping the Eastern Rebels. This is also why bleeding the Ukraine is more in Putin’s interest than the outright victory that has always been in reach for Russia militarily.

There’s a window to make a deal? Why would anyone expect the West to abide by the terms of a deal? After fostering a coup replacing a corrupt but legally elected government with an equally corrupt set of opponents, the West would appear to be untrustworthy. Would a deal simply be a cease fire for a while? Any time not spent shooting is probably an improvement, but still, what’s the point?

One more thing, agree on Hillary and the rest of the presidential field. The US public should buckle up for another 6 to 10 years of useless and counter-productive war…

Russia has zero interest in ‘owning’ the whole of Ukraine, the economic cost alone wuld bankrupt it. That being said, anyone who thought that Russia would allow the Crimea (and the associated all important naval base) to fall into NATO hands should restart their meds. You have to congratulate Russa for incorporating it so peacefully, but, make no mistake, if they had to Russia would have pulled out all military stops to keep it.

Equally, over and above the NATO threat, Russa would never have allowed the ethnic cleansing of eastern Ukraine, which was pretty much on the cards. Absorbing a million refugees is one thing, but several million more?

Being cynical you could just see the western press going on about how bad it was for those ‘Russians’ in the east costing Kiev so much money by getting in the road of all those bullets and that it was all a Putin Plot. I can see the Guardian headlines now, “Putin forces grandmothers to die for propaganda reasons”, as the nazi militias created a reign of terror.

By and large the trajectory of all this is ever more economic collapse for Kiev, more military support and ‘egging onwards’ by the US on them, with more and US/NATO troops covertly fighting (then finally overtly). De-facto (and sometime in the future actual) merging of Eastern Ukraine with Russia. Amost certainly an even more right wing/nazi coup in Kiev. Quite possibly more ‘break away’ regions, again leaning more towards Russia.

None of this is Russia’s favoured option, they would prefer a neutral, federalised and fairly properous and stable Ukraine on their border (duh), but they will have their contigency plans. Plan B for them will be accepting a steady breakup of the Ukraine, slowing it as much as they can but allowing the US to push it to destruction. Essentially accepting the inevitable while managing it as best as they can and pushing the costs onto the US and the EU as much as they can, hoping against hope, that some sanity will eventually prevail..

Sadly I doubt it. The US is not going to stop escalating, the EU bureaucrats are totally behind the US and France and Germany will huff and puff a bit then fall totally into line. So it is up to Russia to somehow avoid the ‘big mistake’ and the nukes flying, because no one in the west is going to do that, their elites are pretty united on a showdown.

And more:

Showing that he is no Montgomery*:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/20/russia-existential-threat-british-nato-general

“Russian expansionist ambitions could quickly become “an obvious existential threat to our whole being”, the most senior British military officer in Nato has said in a strongly worded speech.

General Sir Adrian Bradshaw, appointed last year as Nato’s deputy commander of forces in Europe, said the alliance needed to develop both fast-reacting conventional forces and capacities to counter Russian efforts at coercion and propaganda, as seen in Ukraine.”

And this chilling quote:
“His strongest words came during a section of the speech introducing other threats faced by Nato, including that from Islamic State. He said: “While the threat from Russia, together with the risk it brings of a miscalculation resulting in a slide into strategic conflict, however unlikely we see that as being right now, represents an obvious existential threat to our whole being, we of course face threats from Isis and other instabilities to our way of life and the security of our loved ones.””

They are so desperate to go to war with Russia. Unreal.

* I’d argue the greatest general of any side in WW2 and said “One of the great laws of war is Never Invade Russia.”

Oh and while I think of it Clinton’s hawkishness is merely her reverting to type as she herself admitted she started off as one of the Young Republicans and was a “Goldwater girl”.

mfi

Lisa February 25, 2015 @ Lisa – as I wrote above I am by no means convinced they have blinked and the fact that they’ve gone down the road of outsourcing to the UAE is in my opinion rather strong evidence that they intend to continue.

why are they so gung ho about war with Russia?

Because that’s what they’ve trained for. That’s what they’re there for. Everything else is just extra-frothy Santorum.

What far too many military ‘analysist’ never looked at was the old USSR moved to high mobility (3rd generaton warfare, 3GW) a long time ago and Russia looks like it has got even better at it.

You’re close but not quite there – what they’re good at, what their doctrine is, is highly integrated combined arms attack and response. The difference is important.

mfi

mfi

You can get an idea into the mindset of the US foreign police ‘elite’ at http://www.foreignaffairs.com/ (by the Council on Foreign Relations).

It is amazing, the endless anti-Putin articles, plus those how bad Russia is and ready to collapse at any point. A huge amount of total piffle, totally divorced from reality. Neo-con 101 “we are an empire now and we make our own reality”. But dangerous, because it seems these clowns actually believe their own propaganda. Hence justifies their actions.

The story goes: Russa is an unstable, broke country ruled by a mad dictator (what elections and Parliament?). Put pressure on Russia and the mob will rise up and overthrow Putin tomorrow and a new Russia Govt will cozy up to the west (leaving the Ukraine and Crimea of course).

This could be called ‘talking yourself into war’. I’ve never seen this sort of thing before, a demonificaiton of this level, in many ways far worse than it was for Hussian. The problem is that if you actually believe it then you have no logical alternative but war.

This from one article by By Alexander J. Motyl, in which I couldn’t find one thing that was factually correct (except the 85% approval rate) snippets:
“The longer the Russian war against Ukraine continues, the more likely it is that President Vladimir Putin’s regime will collapse.”
“All signs point to the eventual collapse of Putin’s regime.
Although 85 percent of Russians currently support the president, an Orange Revolution in Moscow…..”
“The Russian war in eastern Ukraine has killed Russians by the thousands.”
“He started the war in Ukraine, and now it’s up to him to bring about some satisfactory conclusion, even though it’s clear from his erratic behavior that he lacks a strategy. He has no way to crush Ukraine without unleashing a global conflict. He has no way to erode Ukraine’s economy without simultaneously destroying Russia’s. Ironically, the one thing Putin could do easily—declare victory in the Donbas and withdraw his troops—is off limits for him, not because it’s politically unfeasible (most Russians would be delighted to get out of this mess),”
“A coup d’état is another possibility. The siloviki, like all Praetorian guards, are a mixed blessing.”

“Even if Putin is not ousted by popular revolution or by a coup, he will be crippled by unrest in Russia’s non-Russian regions.”
“Putin’s successor, whenever he takes power, is likely to be a hardliner; even so, his first priority will have to be to clean the mess created by Putin. Chances are that the new president will be more inclined to end the war and more likely to adopt a conciliatory tone vis-à-vis the rest of the world. ”

“In the meantime, the West should do all it can now to support Ukraine and encourage Putin to deescalate the war. The West can also limit the fallout from a possible regime collapse by supporting Russia’s neighbors—especially Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine—economically, diplomatically, and militarily. When the rotten Russian dam breaks, as it inevitably will, only strong and stable non-Russian states will be able to contain the flooding, shielding the rest of the world from Putin’s disastrous legacy of ruin.”

Then we have “The Resistible Rise of Vladimir Putin” by Stephen Kotkin, which basically says the same thing. And other articles like “Putin’s Brain”……

Ian, can you delete the previous post, my comments didn’t come through (my fault). This one should be ok.

More on how the US foreign policy elite ‘thinking’ (if you can call it that), from the Council on Foreign Relations. Several interesting points, one I love is how ready they are to shove US unconventional oil production under a bus.

Some key snippets, with my comments in italics

Session Three: What Low Oil Prices Mean for Geopolitics

http://www.cfr.org/energy-and-environment/session-three-low-oil-prices-mean-geopolitics/p36174

Speaker: Michael Gfoeller, Advisor, The Chertoff Group; Former Ambassador, U.S. Department of State
Author: David L. Goldwyn, President, Goldwyn Global Strategies, LLC.; Chair, Atlantic Council Energy Advisory Group; Former Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs, U.S. Department of State
Speaker: Angela E. Stent, Professor and Director, Center for Eurasian, Russian, and Eastern European Studies, Georgetown University; Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution
Presider: Michael A. Levi, David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment and Director, Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies, Council on Foreign Relations

RUSSIA & OIL
First there is the de-facto admission that low oil prices have been manufactured, or at least approved, by the US to hurt Russia and Iran
“Angela, I’m going to go straight to you. If you look at the geopolitical headlines that have come out of the oil price collapse over the last six months, they have been dominated by Russia. Has Vladimir Putin been forced to change anything about his international strategy so far because of the drop in oil prices?”

The meme repeated, Russan economy is rubbish
“STENT: Well, the short and the long answer to that is no. And it’s not just the oil prices. I mean, Russia has been hit by a trifecta of blows. The first one was that this is a poorly managed economy. It was spiraling downward even before the Ukraine crisis. It’s manual control, as the Russians like to call it.

Secondly, you then have the oil price precipitous fall, which then led to precipitous devaluation of the ruble, falling the value of the ruble, which is half of what it was a year ago.

Finally an admission that US unofficial sanctions are far more comprehensive than the MSM admits, Russia companies have been cut off from the western money markets
And then you have the Western financial sanctions which have basically cut Russia off, more or less, from international financial markets. Plus the Western sanctions have targeted the energy industry.”

IRAN
De-facto admission again
“LEVI: So Michael, when people started trying to sort out the consequences of the price drop, Russia was the first country they turned to, Iran was the second. These are the two oil-exporting countries that the United States is in acute confrontations with right now. What impact do you see of the oil price plunge on Iran’s willingness and ability to engage in the ongoing negotiations with the United States?”

Wet Dream time, but it shows that the US, following SA and Israel is now totally backing Sunni extremists, Shia are now the enemy
“I think it’ll have a much bigger impact on Iran’s regional policy and its ability to fund non-state actors like Hezbollah, like the Iraqi Shi’a militias, like the Shi’a militias operating on its behalf in Syria right now.”

BACK TO RUSSIA
Escalate, of course
“STENT: Well, this is now vis-a-vis Russia, which is, I think, a slightly different case. I think it’s very important. We can see the economic pain that Russia is experiencing. It’s probably the oil prices, it’s probably the sanctions. And even though that hasn’t led so far to a change really in Russian foreign policy, I think we have to keep the sanctions regime there. If possible, we may have to broaden it if there’s more violence and if the Russian-backed separatists try and take more cities in the region.”

US OIL
Now this is interesting, why the foreign policy elites are happy to throw US unconventional oil production under a bus to get at Russia and Iran. If was a Texan I’d be pushing for secession. An incredible mixture of fantasy and stupidity
“But I think the world has changed for the U.S. I think we now have this ability to deploy capital quickly, to revive production quickly, because the nature of shale production is just not as long a cycle as deepwater or other kinds of production.”

And the US still imports huge amounts of oil? So how are they going to export…reduce US citizens to rationing? This is so far from reality it is stunning
“So we have this, you know, this reserve ability to respond within a reasonable period of time to global market signals. So I would like to see us in a world where we are connected to the market and where we use this as a source of foreign policy power, where we can use our strategic reserves to export oil to others or we can tell the Japanese or the Koreans they can rely long term on U.S. supply if they want to buy it from us, and where we are when we are looking for other countries to reject Iranian supply, and we’re talking the Indians and the Chinese, we can say, you know, we’re not just telling you don’t, we’re telling you we’re going to contribute to the solution by exporting.”

“LEVI: More production gives us more leverage, in your view, and at some level may be worth a slightly higher price to sustain. Is that…”

SYRIA
Love this. The truth comes out, Syria is another target from low oil prices. De-Facto admisison that IS are ‘our boys’, as I have long argued
“So which of the parties to the conflict can deal with the circumstance the best? It’s the Islamic state actually and the Islamist militias that are aligned with it, because their operations are inherently more cost-effective and cheaper than, you know, foreign aid programs for one militant group or another being around from a distance.

The other party negatively affected, of course, is the Assad regime because they’ve been so reliant on subsidies from both Iraq and Iran, largely Iran, of course, but some from Iraq in the form of oil shipments and cash transfers.

IS & AN totally mixed up, ignorance or they see them as the same thing, along with a heap of wet dream thinking. Their knees must tremble in excitement at IS/AN getting into Damascus. But it shows what they really think about IS and what they want them to do
So one can see this already in the performance of Assad’s military machine on the ground. The Islamic state, which is doing better in relative terms, is now in the suburbs of Damascus, they were not there before, they’re making progress near Aleppo. Assad is falling back on both fronts. He’s having trouble paying for diesel for his armored vehicles, jeeps and such. He’s having trouble manufacturing or buying kerosene for the (sweep ?) line or fleet.

So at the end of the day, he’s holding ground, but falling back. And so in net terms, it’s still a long, bloody civil war. There’s not going to be a dramatic shift on the ground at this point. But one can see the Islamic state doing better against the regime and one can see the Gulf states having more difficulty funding.”

Translated, ‘our boys’ are more ‘efficient’ than Syria, therefore they will win
“So to sum it all up, all parties in the conflict are operating with reduced budgets. The Islamic state is operating more efficiently than Assad at this point and is gaining ground against them in Syria. And the Peshmerga are operating with very high level efficiency despite the budgetary stringency they’re operating under.”

RUSSIA/CHINA
Bland agreement that China is the major beneficiary of the oil ‘policy’, it hurts our enemies (Russia, etc) , our friends (SA etc) and themselves US…but it helps China…WTF
“So I would say this. You know, and the other thing, however, is that the Russians have been turning to Chinese to try and help bail them out, again, because of the fall of the ruble and all of their economic problems. And the Chinese have given them some financial relief since, again, Russia doesn’t have access to these international capital markets, but they haven’t given Russia nearly as much as Russia would like. And I think the Chinese obviously are very hard bargainers and they’ll help Russia out to some extent, but not nearly as much as Russia probably needs.”

US/MEXICO
Somehow the US, which despite shale/fracking imports huge amounts of gas and oil is going to be able to export gas to Mexico…despite the price collapse in oil and gas. .Ga-ga land thinking
“Mexico is interesting. They are doing really remarkable things. I think we’re looking at closer gas integration because Mexico will not succeed in the unconventional gas production in the next few years and they’re already shrinking that (bid ?) around. They’re planning on a lot of U.S. gas.”

So this is what passes for an ‘elite’. The levels of ignorance (such as about their own oil/gas industry), their hubris, their wet dream thinking. Admissions that IS/AN are our boys and the soonr they win in Syria the better, the US now anti-Shia (along with SA and Israel), Russia is the number #1 target and the US has effectively financially totally sanctioned them and so on.

Aaaaargh – meant to include this from the WSJ which was the story I originally picked up on:

Ukraine said it would buy what it called defensive weapons from the United Arab Emirates, bypassing the West’s reluctance to provide arms to help Kiev’s forces against Russia-backed rebels.

President Petro Poroshenko, speaking Tuesday at the International Defense Exhibition and Conference in Abu Dhabi, didn’t specify what type of equipment Ukraine would buy or in what quantities, but said they would help Ukraine protect its territory from the separatists.

The U.A.E. Defense Ministry couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. It didn’t include any Ukraine-related arms deals in its daily contract update for the exposition.

Ukraine has for months requested lethal weapons from its backers in the West, but run into stiff resistance especially from Germany, France and Britain, which fear an escalation in the nearly yearlong conflict.

Read in full: Ukraine to Buy ‘Defensive’ Weapons in U.A.E., President Says – WSJ