Ukraine Always Get What You Want

This guy's an expert in the field and I'm sure as hell not, but it does bring up the question, "why?" Why would Russia hold back if it wasn't stupid miscalculation? And now how do you escalate without getting even more of the world (that is to say, China) willing to take steps to cut you down? We went into Iraq for no reason so I'm not saying it can't happen, but our move was national paranoia. This is one guy. I wonder if he keeps his bodyguards at the end of long tables, too. If so, bad move.

 

That was a fantastic interview and discussion.

Thank you for posting it.

 

Well, why else?

 

Because when you do "shock and awe" soldiers are not in harms way, which means your citizens don't ask "why are our boys dying?" We did it in the Balkans in the 90's.

 

He's got a point.

 

But it's too late for that. What's happened to Russia has already happened. Soldiers are already dead. Rouble is already shattered. Only sheer bloodlust (doesn't mean it won't happen, God knows) explains what comes next.

 

Stupid media fucks describing ImPutin as "angry and isolated."

Who have I previously read that about? Assholes.

 

/Margarita Heybyrmynsk

 

I'm very nervous about U.S. networks predicting that somehow this will end in a stalemate from which Putin needs a face-saving exit. This still looks to me like a bunch of Ukrainian knives trying to hold on at a gunfight.

From BBC:

The Chinese embassy in Ukraine is now starting to evacuate its citizens.
The embassy said the first organised group left yesterday, with state media saying these were Chinese students from Kyiv heading to Moldova.
The fact that China is only evacuating its citizens now could mean several things.
One possibility is that Beijing initially felt it was important not to upset Russia prematurely. Another, that China might have thought Russia would take Ukraine so quickly it would not necessitate people leaving.
And another more worrying possibility is that China has calculated that Russia's invasion is about to get much worse.

 

Giving Ukrainian civilians the full Syria treatment would put paid to the notion of Russia doing this out of a sense of brotherhood between the Russian and Ukrainian peoples and liberating suffering Ukrainians from the oppressive boot of the fascist, neo-Nazi regime being propped up by the West. There's always the possibility the Russian leadership believes what it's saying or sees enough value in acting like such that it's worth the trade-off of slower progress on the invasion. If Russian victory and occupation of Ukraine really is as much of an inevitability as IR "realists" and others say it is, why take on extra risk?

Also, China is not going to abandon Russia over anything short of starting nuclear war -- and even then I wouldn't be 100 percent sure. The best you're going to get is China abstaining or voting present like it did at the UNSC. Isolating Russia would mean China potentially losing its only major strategic ally (sorry, Pakistan) at a time when competition with the US and its allies is at its fiercest, so forget any hopes of a new Sino-Soviet split. China is still backing Russia in other arenas, and Chinese state media continues to repeat the Kremlin line of "legitimate security concerns", run friendly reports like Zelenskyy allegedly leaving Kyiv, and blame the West for raising tensions. China will overlook and/or excuse further escalation to bring Ukraine to heel quicker because the leadership in Zhongnanhai has decided it's in the country's best interests. Rank hypocrisy and situational values when it comes to national sovereignty are a feature, not a bug, of great power politics.